PARTS OF SPEECH

PARTS OF SPEECH

INTRODUCTION:

Language is a medium of communication. We express our ideas and thoughts through language, using sentences. Sentences are made of words. For example:

·      I play tennis.

·      The man in black is looking at me.

·      Literature conveys some moral messages to the society.

Words are categorized according to the role or function they perform in grammar. So to put the words into different categories, we give them different names. These special names given to the words are known as parts of speech.

There are total eight parts of speech in English. They are categorized into two - open class and closed class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OPEN CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH

NOUN, VERB, ADVERB, ADJECTIVE

CLOSED CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH

PREPOSITION, CONJUNCTION, DETERMINER, INTERJECTION

OPEN CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH:       

·      Noun, verb, adverb and adjective are the open class parts of speech.

·      When new words can be added to a particular class, it is called open class part of speech. Language is dynamic. So new words are always invented and coined as per the requirement. For example:

·      Advance technology gave us new nouns like ‘internet’, ‘modem’, multimedia’, ‘email’ etc.

New verbs are also coined like, ‘download’, upload’, ‘reboot’ etc.

CLOSED CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH:            

·      Preposition, conjunction, determiner and interjection are the closed class parts of speech.

·      Some parts of speech are closed, that means, one cannot add more words into this category. For example, we have three determiners – ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’. We cannot add fourth articles here.

OPEN CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH:

1.  NOUN:  

DEFINITION: A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.

EXAMPLES: Mobile, table, happiness,

·      Nouns are often used with an article (the, a, an), but not always. 

·      Proper nouns always start with a capital letter; common nouns do not. 

·      Nouns can be singular or plural, concrete or abstract. 

·      Nouns can function in different roles within a sentence; for example, a noun can be used as a subject or an object in a sentence.

·      The pen is on the table.

 

2.  VERB:

DEFINITION:        The word which expresses some action or state of being is called a verb.

EXAMPLES:          Go, come, stand, think etc (lexical), be, do, have, can, could, may etc (auxiliary)

Verbs are of two types – lexical (main) and auxiliary (helping)

3.  ADJECTIVE:

DEFINITION:        The word which adds to the meaning of the noun is called an adjective. In other words, adjectives modify the meanings of the nouns.

EXAMPLES:          Beautiful, noisy, marvelous etc.

There is a lady.

There is an old lady.

4.  ADVERB:       

DEFINITION:        The word which adds more meaning to the verb is called an adverb. It modifies the verb.

EXAMPLES: loudly, carefully, quickly, easily etc.

He speaks loudly.

The mechanic repaired the car carefully.

 

CLOSED CLASS PARTS OF SPEECH:

1.  PREPOSITION:              

DEFNITION:     The word that gets ‘pre’ ‘position’ is called a preposition. It is always used before the noun. They connect different words in a sentence and also convey information about the nouns in terms of location, time, direction etc.

EXAMPLES:     in, on, from, during, towards etc.

The ball is in the cupboard.

We enjoyed a lot during the vacation.

I woke up at 5 in the morning.

2.  CONJUNCTION:

DEFINITION:    The word which joins two different words or clauses together is called a conjunction.

EXAMPLES: and, or, but, that, which etc.

He and she study in the same class.

He said that he was busy then.

3.  DETERMINER:

DEFINITION:    The word which determines something about the noun is called a determiner.

EXAMPLES: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’, ‘this’, that’, these’, ‘those’ etc.

I have an apple. The apple is fresh.

4.  INTERJECTION:

DEFINITION:    Interjections are the words which express our emotions. They are mostly used in informal language.

EXAMPLES: ‘Oh!’, ‘Alas!’, ‘Wow!’ etc.

Hay! Stop messing up with me.

Hurray! We won the match.

Alas! I lost my expensive wrist watch.