Lesson 3 - Parts of Speech
In English Grammar, parts of speech called as the basic building blocks.
There are eight parts of speech in English Language which are as follows :
1. Noun
2. Pronoun
3. Verb
4. Adjective
5. Adverb
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Interjections
Noun
A noun is a word for a person, place, or thing or idea. A thing includes a quality (fear) a material (gold), a collection (herd, army), a state (adherence) and an action (cheat, mock, movement).
Kinds of Noun
Nouns can be classified as follows:
- Common Noun
- Proper Noun
- Collective Noun
- Abstract Noun
- Material Noun
1.Common noun
Common noun is also known as Generic Noun. A common noun refers to any and every person or thing of the same kind or class, not to a particular person or thing:
Eg: cow, dog, girl, boy, man, woman
2. Proper Noun
A proper noun is the name of a particular person or thing, i.e. a name used for an individual person or place, river, or mountain etc.
Eg: Mary, Rahul, Godavari, India, Everest
3.Collective nouns
Collective nouns A collective noun is the name of a collection, group of people, or things of the same kind:
Eg: class, team, government jury, federation
4. Abstract noun
Abstract nouns An abstract noun is the name of a quality, state, or concept:
Eg: beauty, sweetness, childhood, love
5. Material nouns
A material noun is the name of a material, substance, or ingredient things are made of. They can be articles of food or drink as well:
Eg: iron, copper, steel, gold, coal, silver, rice, wheat, milk, water, tea, sugar
Nouns are of two kinds from the viewpoint of countability:
a) Countable nouns b) Uncountable nouns
Countable nouns
Nouns that can be counted are called countable nouns: a book, one book, two books, an egg, one egg, two eggs
Uncountable nouns
Nouns that cannot be counted are called uncountable nouns: milk, water, ink, sugar, butter
Nouns: Gender Noun
Gender is of four kinds: Masculine (denotes male) Feminine (denotes female) Common (denotes both male and female) Neuter (denotes neither male nor female)
Masculine– (boy, man, brother, uncle)
Feminine– (girl, woman, sister, aunt)
Common– (student, teacher, doctor, child)
Neuter– (gold, rice, flower, river)
Pronouns
Pro means ‘for’ or ‘acting as.’ A pronoun is used as a substitute for a noun or a noun phrase. In other words, it has all the characteristics of a noun: it can function as a subject/object/complement in a sentence.
A pronoun is used to avoid the repetition of nouns or noun phrases:
1. Suresh went to the market because Suresh wanted to buy a pen.
i.e. Suresh went to the market because he wanted to buy a pen.
2. Walking is a form of exercise. Walking is easier than swimming.
i.e. Walking is a form of exercise. It is easier than swimming.
Verb
Verb is defined as a word which is used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence. Verbs always express activity , whether mental activity or physical activity.
Eg. walk, go, sing, are, seem, sleep
Regular Verb:
Irregular Verb:
The verbs , in which we do not add -d or -ed to make Past Tense are known as Irregular Verbs , For Example :
(bring-brought-brought), (eat-ate-eaten), (go-went-gone), etc
Transitive and Intransitive Verb :
A verb which has an object is called a transitive verb Means the verbs which cannot be used without an object . For example : throw, buy, hit, love.
He throw a stone (Using a stone is a must to define the activity)
A verb which do not require an object are called Intransitive Verbs. For example : go, come, walk, listen.
He walks (We don’t need an object to define activity).
Modal Verb :
Modal verbs are those verbs which do not change their form (spelling) and they have no infinitive or participle (past/present). Modal verbs are those verbs which express necessity ,possibility , request etc.
The modal verbs are can,could , must, may, might, will, would, should, ought to . They are used with other verbs to express ability, obligation, possibility, and so on. leo.
Adjectives and Determiners
Adjectives are the word which qualifies, describes or modifies nouns and pronouns by giving some information about the size, shape, age, colour or material of some object. Adjectives are usually used before the nouns and pronouns. Adjectives cannot be used alone but they make the sentence meaningful by telling something special about the noun and pronoun.Some examples of Adjectives are Good, bitter, small, black, Fat, great etc.
Types of adjectives:
Adjectives of quality
Adjectives of quality show the Kind, type or quality of a person or a thing.
Eg. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a great person. (Here the adjective great shows a certain quality of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam)
Adjectives of quantity
Adjectives of quantity are used to describe the quantity of things, which are uncountable. They are used in a sentence to answer, ‘How much’?
Some examples of adjectives of quantity are “enough, some, any, half, whole, much, little, all, no” etc.
Adjectives of number:
The adjectives which tell us “How many” are known as Adjectives of number .
Some examples of ‘adjectives of Number’ are “one, two, many, first, tenth, all” etc.
Demonstrative adjectives
The adjectives which demonstrate or denote which person or thing is being talked about are Demonstrative adjectives. These adjectives answer the question ‘which?’.
Some examples of Demonstrative Adjectives are this, that, these, those and such. This and that are used with singular nouns. These and those are used with plural nouns.
Interrogative adjectives
When there is a noun just after Interrogative words ‘What, which and whose‘ then these are termed as Interrogative adjectives.
• Which dress should I wear?
• Whose book is this?
• What type of shows do you like?
Degrees of Comparison:
1.Positive Degree, 2.Comparative Degree 3.Superlative Degree
Positive degree expresses the base form or simple form of an adjective. Comparative form is used to compare between two people or two things. It shows a higher degree of the quality than that is present in the positive degree. The highest degree of quality is expressed by a Superlative degree which expresses the superiority among more than two people or things. For Example
1. Priya is a smart girl.
2. Priya is smarter than Keerthi.
(Long-longer-longest) (Short-shorter-shortest) (Sweet- sweeter- sweetest)
Determiners
Determiners fall into the following categories:
A. articles
a, an, the
B. possessives
my, our, your, his, her, their, its
C. demonstratives
this, that, these, those
These are used to point out people or things.
This car is red. That girl is tall.
D. distributives
each, every, either, neither
another, many, several, some, any, no, few, enough,
a number of, a lot of, lots of, plenty of, some of, many of,
one, two, three … (cardinal numbers)
F. quantifiers
much” some, no, any, little, enough,
a lot of, lots of, plenty of, much of, some of