Index: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Home > Part of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. In transformational-generative grammar, parts of speech are known as lexical categories. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed word classes, which acquire new members infrequently if at all.In traditional English grammar, which is patterned after Latin grammar, and is still taught in schools and used in dictionaries, there are eight parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Modern grammarians however believe that this list is somewhat simplified and artificial. For example, adverb is to some extent a "catch all" class that includes words with many different functions.
Common ways of delimiting words by function include:
- Open word classes:
- adjectives
- adverbs
- interjections
- nouns
- verbs (except auxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb whose function it is to give further semantic information about the main verb which follows it. In English, the extra meaning an auxiliary verb imparts alters the basic form of the main verb to have one or mores)
- Closed word classes:
- auxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb whose function it is to give further semantic information about the main verb which follows it. In English, the extra meaning an auxiliary verb imparts alters the basic form of the main verb to have one or mores
- cliticIn linguistics, a clitic is a morpheme that functions syntactically like a word, but does not appear as an independent phonological word; instead it is always attached to a following or preceding word. A clitic is either an enclitic where the clitic is wis
- coverb s
- conjunctions
- determiners
- particles
- measure words
- prepositions and postpositions
- preverbs
- pronouns
Some of these classes are limited to particular language families, e.g. coverbs seem to be restricted to Australian languages.
1 English
English is an analytic language and frequently does not mark words as belonging to one part of speech or another. Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave and telephone might all be either verb forms or nouns. Although -ly is an adverb marker, not all adverbs end in -ly and not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. For instance, tomorrow, slow, fast, crosswise can all be adverbs, while leisurely, friendly, ugly are all adjectives.
In certain circumstances, even words with primarily grammatical functions can be used as verbs or nouns, as in "We must look to the hows and not just the whys" or "Miranda was to-ing and fro-ing and not paying attention".
Read more »