PART OF SPEECH
In grammar, a lexical category (also word class, lexical class, or in traditional grammar part of speech) is a linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire new members, and closed word classes, which acquire new members infrequently if at all.
Different languages may have different lexical categories, or they might associate different properties to the same one. For example, Japanese has as many as three classes of adjectives where English has one; Chinese, Korean and Japanese have measure words while European languages do not grammaticalize these units of measurement (a pair of pants, a grain of rice); many languages don't have a distinction between adjectives and adverbs, adjectives and verbs (see stative verbs) or adjectives and nouns[citation needed], etc. Many linguists argue that the formal distinctions between parts of speech must be made within the framework of a specific language or language family, and should not be carried over to other languages or language families.
History
The classification of words into lexical categories is found from the earliest moments in the history of linguistics.[1] In the Nirukta, written in the 5th or 6th century BCE, the Sanskrit grammarian Yāska defined four main categories of words:[2]
- nāma - nouns or substantives
- ākhyāta - verbs
- upasarga - pre-verbs or prefixes
- nipāta - particles, invariant words (perhaps prepositions)
These four were grouped into two large classes: inflected (nouns and verbs) and uninflected (pre-verbs and particles).
A century or two later, the Greek scholar Plato wrote in the Cratylus dialog that "... sentences are, I conceive, a combination of verbs [rhēma] and nouns [ónoma]".[3] Another class, "conjunctions" (covering conjunctions, pronouns, and the article), was later added by Aristotle.
By the end of the 2nd century BCE, the classification scheme had been expanded into eight categories, seen in the Tékhnē grammatiké:
- Noun: a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a concrete or abstract entity
- Verb: a part of speech without case inflection, but inflected for tense, person and number, signifying an activity or process performed or undergone
- Participle: a part of speech sharing the features of the verb and the noun
- Article: a part of speech inflected for case and preposed or postposed to nouns (the relative pronoun is meant by the postposed article)
- Pronoun: a part of speech substitutable for a noun and marked for person
- Preposition: a part of speech placed before other words in composition and in syntax
- Adverb: a part of speech without inflection, in modification of or in addition to a verb
- Conjunction: a part of speech binding together the discourse and filling gaps in its interpretation
The Latin grammarian Priscian (fl. 500 CE) modified the above eightfold system, substituting "interjection" for "article". It wasn't until 1767 that the adjective was taken as a separate class.[4]
Traditional English grammar is patterned after the European tradition above, and is still taught in schools and used in dictionaries. It names eight parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection (sometimes called an exclamation).
NOUNS
Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase.
In traditional English grammar, the noun is one of the eight parts of speech.
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VERB
A verb is a doing word (helping, grabbing). In syntax, a verb is a word (part of speech) that usually denotes an action (bring, read), an occurrence (decompose, glitter), or a state of being (exist, stand). Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It may also agree with the person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments (subject, object, etc.).
The number of arguments that a verb takes is called its valency or valence. Verbs can be classified according to their valency:
- Intransitive (valency = 1): the verb only has a subject. For example: "he runs", "it falls".
- Transitive (valency = 2): the verb has a subject and a direct object. For example: "she eats fish", "we hunt deer".
- Instrumental: That book will make us a million dollars.
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- cf. We will make a million dollars with that book.
- Origin: The dam is leaking water.
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- cf. Water is leaking from the dam.
- Location: The forest rustles with dead leaves.
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- cf. Dead leaves rustle in the forest.
- Topical: This construction project cannot proceed.
- cf. We cannot proceed with this construction project.
PRONOUNS
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Lat: pronomen) is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun (or noun phrase) with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English. The replaced phrase is called the antecedent of the pronoun.
For example, consider the sentence "Lisa gave the coat to Phil." All three nouns in the sentence can be replaced by pronouns: "She gave it to him." If the coat, Lisa, and Phil have been previously mentioned, the listener can deduce what the pronouns she, it and him refer to and therefore understand the meaning of the sentence. However, if the sentence "She gave it to him" is the first presentation of the idea, none of the pronouns have antecedents and each pronoun is therefore ambiguous. Pronouns without antecedents are also called unprecursed pronouns.
Types of pronouns
Common types of pronouns found in the world's languages are as follows.
- Personal pronouns stand in place of the names of people or things:
- Subjective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the subject of the sentence or clause. English example: I like to eat chips, but she does not.
- Second person formal and informal pronouns (T-V distinction). For example, vous and tu in French. There is no distinction in modern English, though Elizabethan English marked the distinction with "thou" (singular informal) and "you" (plural or singular formal).
- Inclusive and exclusive "we" pronouns indicate whether the audience is included. There is no distinction in English.
- Intensive pronouns re-emphasize a noun or pronoun that has already been mentioned. English uses the same forms as for the reflexive pronouns; for example: I did it myself (contrast reflexive use I did it to myself).
- Objective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the object of the sentence or clause. English example: John likes me but not her.
- Direct and indirect object pronouns. English uses the same forms for both; for example: Mary loves him (direct object); Mary sent him a letter (indirect object).
- Reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing acts on itself. English example: John cut himself.
- Reciprocal pronouns refer to a reciprocal relationship. English example: They do not like each other.
- Prepositional pronouns come after a preposition. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Mary looked at him.
- Disjunctive pronouns are used in isolation, or in certain other special grammatical contexts. No distinct forms exist in English; for example: Who does this belong to? Me.
- Dummy pronouns are used when grammatical rules require a noun (or pronoun), but none is semantically required. English example: It is raining.
- Weak pronouns.
- Subjective pronouns are used when the person or thing is the subject of the sentence or clause. English example: I like to eat chips, but she does not.
- Possessive pronouns are used to indicate possession or ownership.
- In strict sense, the possessive pronouns are only those that act syntactically as nouns. English example: Those clothes are mine.
- Often, though, the term "possessive pronoun" is also applied to the so-called possessive adjectives (or possessive determiners). For example, in English: I lost my wallet. They are not strictly speaking pronouns because they do not substitute for a noun or noun phrase, and as such, some grammarians classify these terms in a separate lexical category called determiners (they have a syntactic role close to that of adjectives, always qualifying a noun).
- Demonstrative pronouns distinguish the particular objects or people that are referred to from other possible candidates. English example: I shall take these.
- Indefinite pronouns refer to general categories of people or things. English example: Anyone can do that.
- Distributive pronouns are used to refer to members of a group separately, rather than collectively. English example: To each his own.
- Negative pronouns indicate the non-existence of people or things. English example: Nobody thinks that.
- Relative pronouns refer back to people or things previously mentioned. English example: People who smoke should quit now.
- Indefinite relative pronouns have some of the properties of both relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns. They have a sense of "referring back", but the person or thing to which they refer has not previously been explicitly named. English example: I know what I like.
- Interrogative pronouns ask which person or thing is meant. English example: Who did that?
- In many languages (e.g., Czech, English, French, Interlingua, Russian) the sets of relative and interrogative pronouns are nearly identical. Compare English: Who is that? (interrogative) to I know who that is. (relative).
- Who says so?
- That reminds me of something.
- He looked at them.
- Take it or leave it (Impersonal pronoun).
- I love you.
In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's referent. Some examples can be seen in the box to the right. Collectively, adjectives form one of the traditional English eight parts of speech, though linguists today distinguish adjectives from words such as determiners that also used to be considered adjectives.
Not all languages have adjectives, but most, including English, do. (English adjectives include big, old, and tired, among many others.) Those that do not, typically use words of another part of speech, often verbs, to serve the same semantic function; for example, such a language might have a verb that means "to be big", and would use a construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what English expresses as "big house". Even in languages that do have adjectives, one language's adjective might not be another's; for example, while English uses "to be hungry" (hungry being an adjective), French uses "avoir faim" (literally "to have hunger"), and where Hebrew uses the adjective "זקוק" (zaqūq, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".
In most languages with adjectives, they form an open class of words; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation.
- That is a tall building.
- I met a very old man.
- The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
- Most monkeys are arboreal creatures that inhabit tropical or subtropical areas.
- That's a very nice dress you are wearing
An adverb is a part of speech. It is any word that modifies any other part of language: verbs, adjectives (including numbers), clauses, sentences and other adverbs, except for nouns; modifiers of nouns are primarily determiners and adjectives.
Adverbs typically answer questions such as how?" (or "in what way?), when?, where?, why? and to what extent?. In English, they often end in -ly.
When they answer 'how' it is usually in what way.
When they answer 'when' it is usually a date or a word such as yesterday or today.
When they answer 'why' it is usually an explanation of a problem, issue, or situatiuon usually ending after because.
When they answer 'where' it usually states a place.
This function is called the adverbial function, and is realized not just by single words (i.e., adverbs) but by adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses.
An adverb as an adverbial may be a sentence element in its own right.
- They treated her well. (SUBJECT)
Alternatively, an adverb may be contained within a sentence element.
- An extremely attractive man entered the room. (SUBJECT + ADVERBIAL + OBJECT)
- The waves came in quickly over the rocks.
- I found the film amazingly dull.
- The meeting went well, and the directors were extremely happy with the outcome.
- Crabs are known for walking sideways.
- I often have eggs for breakfast
INTERJECTION
An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection with the rest of the sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions. Filled pauses such as uh, er, um, are also considered interjections. Interjections are generally uninflected function words and have sometimes been seen as sentence-words, because they can replace or be replaced by a whole sentence (they are holophrastic). Sometimes, however, interjections combine with other words to form sentences, but not with finite verbs. When an exclamation point is not needed, a comma can take the place.
Interjections are used when the speaker encounters events that cause these emotions — unexpectedly, painfully, surprisingly, or in many other sudden ways. However, several languages have interjections that cannot be related to emotions.
The word "interjection" literally means "thrown in between" from the Latin inter ("between") and iacere ("throw").
Interjections are words used to express strong feeling or sudden emotion. They are included in a sentence usually at the start to express a sentiment such as surprise, disgust, joy, excitement, or enthusiasm.
Some examples of interjections are "Oh!" and "Wow!".
- For a list of English interjections, see the list of English interjections at Wiktionary.
Conventions like Hello, Bye, and Goodbye are interjections, as are exclamations like Cheers! and Hurray!. In fact, very often they are characterized by exclamation marks depending on the stress of the attitude or the force of the emotion they are expressing. Well can also be used as an interjection, for example when put at the beginning of a sentence. Much profanity (see also expletive) takes the form of interjections. Some linguists consider the pro-sentences yes, no, amen and okay as interjections, since they have no syntactical connection with other words and rather work as sentences themselves. Expressions "Excuse me!", "Sorry!", and similar ones often serve as interjections. Interjections can be phrases or even sentences, as well as words:
- As I entered the room — Oh, my gosh! What I saw! — he was still standing there.
- Oh dude!
