GLOBAL WRITERS BUREAU ENGLISH GRAMMAR & WRITING STYLE COURSE
LESSON 1
We begin from the beginning, with the traditional Parts of Speech. The sentence can be made up of many words or a few words, but these words will always perform one of eight tasks. These tasks are referred to as the eight parts of speech. Just as bricks are important in a building, Parts of Speech are crucial in sentence construction. Without them, you have no sentence.
Here they are the great eight parts of speech:
Verb : Expresses actions, thought, wishes, etc.
Noun: Gives a name to persons, places, things
Pronoun: Replaces nouns, usually to avoid irritating repetition of nouns.
Adjective: Qualifies or limits nouns or pronouns. (It is not enough to say ‘describes’)
Preposition: Shows relationship; is always followed by a noun or pronoun
Adverb: Modifies has an altering effect upon) verbs, adjectives, prepositions and other adverbs.
Interjection: Expresses sudden emotion.
Conjunction: Links two sentences of equal importance, and words.
Here are examples for you:
Verb: climb, eat, welcome, be
Noun: aircraft, country, lady, hour
Adjective: good, British, cold, quick
Adverb: quickly, always, approximately
Preposition: to, of, at, on
Determiner: the, his, some, forty-five
Pronoun: we, you, them, myself
Conjunction: and, but, so
NOTE There is also a small class of words called 'interjections'. They include oh, ah and mhm
It is not the word itself that decides a part of speech, but the job the word does. Some words belong to more than one word class. For example, test can be a noun or a verb.
He passed the test. (noun)
He had to test the machine. (verb)
To drive our lesson home, here are more details about Parts of Speech:
Verb: A verb is a word used to express action or a state of being (Expresses actions, thought, wishes, etc).
Noun: A noun is a word used to name a person, a place, a thing, or an idea (Gives a name to persons, places, things)
Pronoun: A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or of more than one noun (Replaces nouns, usually to avoid irritating repetition of nouns).
Adjective: An adjective is a word used to modify a noun or a pronoun (Qualifies or limits nouns or pronouns-it is not enough to say ‘describes’)
Preposition: A preposition is a word used to show the relationship of a noun or pronoun to some other word in a sentence (Shows relationship; is always followed by a noun or pronoun)
Adverb: An adverb is a word used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb (Modifies, has an altering effect upon verbs, adjectives, prepositions and other adverbs).
Interjection: An interjection is a word used to express emotion. It has no grammatical relation to other words in the sentence( Expresses sudden emotion).
Conjunction: A conjunction is a word used to join words or groups of words (Links two sentences of equal importance, and words).
Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are identified by the position they occupy within a sentence and by their form-the inflectional endings.
On the other hand, prepositions, conjunctions, articles (determiners), and interjections are identified by their function. They do not have inflectional endings, and they are identified most readily by their use and position relative to other words in the sentence.
Therefore, the part of speech of a word is determined by the way the word is USED in a sentence.
It is not the word itself that decides a part of speech, but the job the word does.
Examples with the word PRACTICE.
The coach decided that the team needed more practice. (noun)
The girl practice every Saturday afternoon. (verb)
They will have a practice session after school on Wednesday. (adjective)
Exercise 1: Now, it’s your turn!
Give the part of speech of the words in red (italics):
- The man had a ROUND face. (A- noun) (B-Adjective)
- They ROUND the bend at speed. (A- verb) (B-preposition)
- They skidded ROUND the bend. (A-adverb) (B- preposition)
- The women played a ROUND of golf. (A-adjective) (B- noun)
GLOBAL WRITERS BUREAU ENGLISH GRAMMAR & WRITING STYLE COURSE
LESSON 2
The verb is the most important part of speech. In any sentence, without the verb – a finite verb – there cannot be a sentence. A verb is said to be finite when it takes a subject, to find the subject of a verb, we ask “who?” or “what?” in front of it:
- The large man walks. (Who walks?)
- Jean was hurt. (Who was hurt?)
- It will have been found. (What will have been found?)
- The old barn is creaking. (What is creaking?)
So a sentence must always contain at least two words, a verb and its subject word. Without these there can be no sentence. Length is no guide. Note that, as in (3) above, a verb may contain as many as four words – “will have been found.”
Note that the subject words in the above examples (man, Jean, it, barn) are nouns or pronouns. This is always the case.
Example 2:
Decide whether the following groups of words are sentences or not:
- I work. (A- yes) (B- no)
- Taken by surprise at dusk in a little-frequented quarter of the city. (A- no) (B-yes)
- To make an important decision and carry it out with determination and effort. (A- no) (B- yes)
- The boy was taken by surprise. (A- no) (B- yes)
