2. Parts of Speech
Learning about the parts of speech is the first step
in grammar study just as learning the letters of the
alphabet is the first step to being able to read and
write. From learning the parts of speech we begin
to understand the use or function of words and how
words are joined together to make meaningful
communication.
To understand what a part of speech is, you must
understand the idea of putting similar things
together into groups or categories. Let's look at
some examples of categories.
3. COLORS FRUITS DRINKS LANGUAGES
blue banana milk Spanish
red apple water Arabic
yellow orange soda Japanese
green grape beer English
black lemon coffee Korean
4. Colors, fruits, drinks, and languages are
categories.
The parts of speech are categories used to
organize or classify words according to how they
are used.
We use parts of speech as a way to make it easier
to talk about language.
The philosopher Aristotle and later scientists
studied animals and classified them according to
what they have in common.
For example, eagles, robins and sparrows are
kinds of birds; sharks, salmon and tuna are kinds
of fish; and dogs, horses and elephants are kinds
of mammals. Aristotle and others also studied
language and classified words according to what
they have in common.
5. We usually use 8 categories or parts of speech to
classify all the words we use in English. This
classification is not perfect. Sometimes it is hard
to tell which category a word belongs in. The
same word may belong in different categories
depending on how it is used.
There may be better ways to classify English
than by using the 8 parts of speech. But this
classification has been used for a long time and
many grammar books use it, so it is easier to
keep on using it. It is possible to speak or learn a
language without knowing the parts of speech,
but for most of us, knowing about parts of
speech makes things easier.
6. Look at the sentence:
The man surreptitiously entered the room.
You probably don't know the meaning of the word
surreptitiously, but if you know about parts of
speech, you will recognize that it is an adverb and
that it tells you something about how the man
entered the room.
You may still not understand the exact meaning of
the word, but you can understand the whole
sentence better than if you did not know about
parts of speech.
7.
8. example
part of speech function or "job" example words
sentences
(to) be, have, do, EnglishClub.com
Verb action or state like, work, sing, is a web site. I like
can, must EnglishClub.com.
pen, dog, work,
This is my dog. He
music, town,
Noun thing or person lives in my house.
London, teacher,
We live in London.
John
a/an, the, 69,
some, good, big, My dog is big. I
Adjective describes a noun
red, well, like big dogs.
interesting
My dog eats
describes a verb, quickly, silently, quickly. When he
Adverb adjective or well, badly, very, is very hungry, he
adverb really eats really
quickly.
9. function or example
part of speech example words
"job" sentences
I, you, he, she, Tara is Indian.
Pronoun replaces a noun
some She is beautiful.
We went to
links a noun to to, at, after, on,
Preposition school on
another word but
Monday.
I like dogs and I
joins clauses or like cats. I like
Conjunction sentences or and, but, when cats and dogs. I
words like dogs but I
don't like cats.
short
Ouch! That
exclamation,
oh!, ouch!, hi!, hurts! Hi! How
Interjection sometimes
well are you? Well, I
inserted into a
don't know.
sentence
10. Verbs may be treated as two different parts of
speech:
Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
Determiners may be treated as a separate part
of speech, instead of being categorized under
Adjectives
REMEMBER……..
Each part of speech explains not what the word is,
but how the word is used. In fact, the same word can
be a noun in one sentence and a verb or adjective in
the next.
