PARTS OF SPEECH AND WORD CLASSES

OLD-FASHIONED LATIN GRAMMAR

• Never split an infinitive.

• Never end a sentence with a preposition.

If these rules were followed, we wouldn’t have phrases like ‘to boldly go’ and sentences like ‘I have nobody to go with’.

TRADITIONAL PARTS OF SPEECH1. Noun: naming word (a chance)

2. Pronoun: noun substitute (their last chance)

3. Verb: doing or being word (they lost the chance)

4. Adjective: describes nouns or pronouns (fat chance)

5. Adverb: describes adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs (a very slim chance; she danced divinely)

6. Article: specifies definiteness or indefiniteness of a noun (the dance; a good chance)

7. Conjunction: joining word (a slim chance and a very slim chance)

8. Preposition: word that positions (at the dance)

9. Interjection: conveys emotion or sentiment (Wow! What a dance!)

TRADITIONAL PARTS OF SPEECH

However, the good goblin apparently

noticed me in the crowd. Gosh!

conjunction article adjective noun adverb

verb pronoun preposition article noun interjection

WORDS AS MULTIPLE PARTS OF SPEECHThat’s such a happy face.

In this sentence, ‘face’ is a noun.

I can’t face that mountain of work.

But in this sentence, ‘face’ is the verb.

TWO CLASSES OF WORDS

Form-class words• Also called open or lexical words• Comprise the central subject matter in dictionaries

Structure-class words• Also called closed, grammatical, or function words• Contribute grammatical-structural meaning to the text

Unless otherwise stated all content is available for use under the creative commons license Attribution-ShareAlike

Attribution# Title License Source Creator Contact

1 Attribution Name CC-BY-NC-ND youtube.com/user/sense101x A. Nomedplume enquiries@uqx.uq.edu.au