What part of speech is the word something

A part of speech is a term used in traditional grammar for one of the nine main categories into which words are classified according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. Also known as word classes, these are the building blocks of grammar.

Every sentence you write or speak in English includes words that fall into some of the nine parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections. (Some sources include only eight parts of speech and leave interjections in their own category.)

Learning the names of the parts of speech probably won’t make you witty, healthy, wealthy, or wise. In fact, learning just the names of the parts of speech won’t even make you a better writer. However, you will gain a basic understanding of sentence structure and the English language by familiarizing yourself with these labels.

Open and Closed Word Classes

The parts of speech are commonly divided into open classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) and closed classes (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles/determiners, and interjections). The idea is that open classes can be altered and added to as language develops and closed classes are pretty much set in stone. For example, new nouns are created every day, but conjunctions never change.

In contemporary linguistics, the label part of speech has generally been discarded in favor of the term word class or syntactic category. These terms make words easier to qualify objectively based on word construction rather than context. Within word classes, there is the lexical or open class and the function or closed class.

Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.

Noun

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they’re the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronoun

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​ I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verb

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject’s state of being (is, was). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count distinction (singular or plural). Examples: sing, dance, believes, seemed, finish, eat, drink, be, became

Adjective

Adjectives describe nouns and pronouns. They specify which one, how much, what kind, and more. Adjectives allow readers and listeners to use their senses to imagine something more clearly. Examples: hot, lazy, funny, unique, bright, beautiful, poor, smooth.

Adverb

Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They specify when, where, how, and why something happened and to what extent or how often. Examples: softly, lazily, often, only, hopefully, softly, sometimes.

Preposition

Prepositions show spacial, temporal, and role relations between a noun or pronoun and the other words in a sentence. They come at the start of a prepositional phrase, which contains a preposition and its object. Examples: up, over, against, by, for, into, close to, out of, apart from.

Conjunction

Conjunctions join words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. There are coordinating, subordinating, and correlative conjunctions. Examples: and, but, or, so, yet, with.

Articles and Determiners

Articles and determiners function like adjectives by modifying nouns, but they are different than adjectives in that they are necessary for a sentence to have proper syntax. Articles and determiners specify and identify nouns, and there are indefinite and definite articles. Examples: articles: a, an, the; determiners: these, that, those, enough, much, few, which, what.

Some traditional grammars have treated articles as a distinct part of speech. Modern grammars, however, more often include articles in the category of determiners, which identify or quantify a noun. Even though they modify nouns like adjectives, articles are different in that they are essential to the proper syntax of a sentence, just as determiners are necessary to convey the meaning of a sentence, while adjectives are optional.

Interjection

Interjections are expressions that can stand on their own or be contained within sentences. These words and phrases often carry strong emotions and convey reactions. Examples: ah, whoops, ouch, yabba dabba do!

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections (Hooray!) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below, work functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for work two hours late.
  • The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to work until midnight.
  • The verb work is the action he must perform.
• His work permit expires next month.
  • The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit.

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

• Birds fly.

In the short sentence above, birds is the noun and fly is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it’s a command to an understood «you».

• Go!

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, «(You) go!»

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what’s happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it’s a preposition because it’s followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

Every word is a part of speech, each playing a specific role in a sentence. There are 8 different parts of speech including noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Each word in a sentence plays a vital role in conveying the meaning and intent of the sentence.

What is Part of Speech?

The English language has thousands of words and every word has some function to perform. Some words are there to show action, some to join, and some to name something. And together, all the functions performed by words in the English language fall under Parts of speech.           
 

Parts of Speech Definition

The parts of speech are the “traditional grammatical categories to which words are assigned in accordance with their syntactic functions, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and so on.” In other words, they refer to the different roles that words can play in a sentence and how they relate to one another based on grammar and syntax.

Parts of Speech Table

Parts of Speech Examples with Sentences

Noun

Examples: Luggage, Cattle.

Sentence:  Never leave your luggage unattended.

In some places, cattle are fed barely.

Pronoun

Examples: who, either, themselves

Sentence: I know a man who plays the guitar very well.

Either of the two cars is for sale.

They enjoyed themselves at the party.

Adjective

Examples: kind, moving, wounder.

Sentence: 

She is a kind person.

Boarding a moving bus can be dangerous.

Never poke a wounded animal.

Verb

Examples: Praise, Hate, Punish

Sentence: She always praises her friends.

I don’t hate anybody.

The boy has been punished by his teacher

Adverb

Examples: Always, enough, immediately

Sentence: we should always help each other.

We should be wise enough to understand what is good for us.

We should leave bad habits immediately.

Preposition

Examples: Off, Below, From. to

Sentence: 

He plunged off the cliff

I live below the 9th floor.

I travel daily from Delhi to Noida.

Conjunction

Examples: whereas, as well as, so, 

Sentence: The new software is fairly simple whereas the old one was a bit complicated.

The finance company is not performing well as well as some of its competitors.

He was ready so he may come. 

Interjection

Examples: oops! whoa! phew! 

Sentence: Oops! I forgot to mention her name.

Whoa! you drive fast. 

Phew! That was close call, we had a narrow escape.

Parts of Speech Quiz

Choose the correct Parts of Speech of the BOLD word from the following questions.

1. Let us play, Shall We?

       a. Conjunction

       b. Pronoun

       c. Verb

2.  It is a good practice to arrange books on shelves.

      a. Verb

      b. Noun

      c. Adjective

3. Whose books are these?

      a. Pronoun

     b. Preposition

     c. verb

4.  Father, please get me that toy. 

     a. Pronoun

     b. Adverb

     c. Adjective

5.  His mentality is rather obnoxious.

     a. Adverb

     b. Adjective

     c. Noun

6.  He is the guy whose money got stolen.

      a. Pronoun

      b. Conjunction

      c. Adjective

7. I will have finished my semester by the end of this year.

      a. Interjection

      b. Conjunction

      c. Preposition

8. Bingo! That’s the one I have been looking for

    a. Interjection

     b. Conjunction

     c. Preposition

Quiz Answers

1. c,  2. b,  3. a,  4. c,  5. a,  6. b,  7. c,  8. a

FAQs on Parts of Speech

Q1. What are Parts of Speech?

Ans. A word is assigned to a category as per its function, and those categories are together known as Parts of Speech.

Q2. What are the 8 Parts of Speech?

Ans. Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection.

Q3. How many Parts of Speech are there?

Ans. There are a total of 8 parts of Speech.

Q4. What Part of Speech is “our”?

Ans. Adjective. Eg. Our car.

Q5. What Part of Speech is “Quickly”?

Ans. Adverb. let us understand it with this example – Milk sours quickly in warm weather.

SEMINAR
3 Morphology

1. The
   problem of and approaches to the parts of speech classification

The
parts of speech are classes of words, all the members of these
classes having certain characteristics in common which distinguish
them fr om the members of other classes. The problem of word
classification into parts of speech still remains one of the most
controversial problems in modern linguistics. The attitude of
grammarians with regard to parts of speech and the basis of their
classification varied a good deal at different times. Only in English
grammarians have been vacillating between 3 and 13 parts of speech.
There are four approaches to the problem:

1. Classical
   (logical-inflectional)

2. Functional

3. Distributional

4. Complex

1. Classical
   approach

1. Functional
   approach

1. Distributional
   approach

1. Complex
   approach

1. The
   field nature of parts of speech

1. The
   notional :: functional parts of speech

Notional
parts of speech perform certain functions in the sentence whereas
functional express relations between the words. Functional parts of
speech never change their form.

Noun
[существительное] — 
is a word or group of words that refers to a person, place, or thing.
There are common
nouns [имена нарицательные] that
refer to things and proper
nouns [имена собственные] that
refer to names of places or people.

E.g house
[дом] , river [река], bridge [мост], Jessica
[Джессика], parents [родители], London
[Лондон]…

Verb
[глагол] —
is a word or group of words in a language that serve to indicate the
occurrence or performance of an action, the existence of a state or
condition, etc. One can also distinguish such nonfinite forms of
a verb as participle
[причастие] and
 adverbial
participle [деепричастие].

E.g. to
run [бегать], to dance [танцевать], to live [жить],
to be [быть], to sing [петь]….

Adjective
[прилагательное] — is
a word or group of words that impute a characteristic to a noun
or pronoun.

E.g. beautiful
[красивый], orange [оранжевый], smart [умный],
long [длинный]…

In
the dictionary all Russian adjectives are of masculine gender.

Adverb
[наречие] —
a word or group of words that serves to modify a whole sentence, a
verb, another adverb, or an adjective.

E.g. probably
[возможно], easily [легко], very [очень], 
happily [счастливо]….

Some
English adverbs have exactly the same form as adjectives whereas in
Russian these are two  different words.

E.g.
She runs fast.
— Она быстро бегает.

She
is a fast runner.
— Она быстрая бегунья.

Numeral
[числительное] —
a word or a group words that express a number. We can usually
recognize cardinal
numerals [количественные числительные] which
denote the quantity of objects ,like, one, two, three, один, два,
три, collective numerals
[собирательные числительные] which
signify that several persons or things are taken definitely and
unitedly together, in the sense of — both, all three, all four,
etc and ordinal
numerals [порядковые числительные] which
denote the serial order in which an object stands.

Pronoun
[местоимение] —
one of a class of words that serves to replace a noun phrase that has
already been or is about to be mentioned in the sentence or context.

E.g. he
[он], she [она], her [её], our [наш]

Pronouns
can be subdivided into 9
subgroups in
Russian. In my Russian 101 class we talk about:

—Personal
pronouns [личные местоимения] as
«he, she, I, you, we»;

—Possessive
pronouns [притяжательные местоимения] as
«your, my, ours, theirs, her, his»;

—Demonstrative
pronouns [указательные местоимения] as
«this, that»; and

—Interrogative
pronouns [вопросительные местоимения] as
«who, what, which, whose».

The
other types of pronouns are

—Reflexive
pronouns [возвратные местоимения] as
«oneself [себя]»;

—Negative
pronouns [отрицательные местоимения] as
«nobody [никто], nothing [ничто]»;

—Indefinite
pronouns [неопределённые местоимения] as
«somebody [кто-то], something [что-то]»;

—Definitive
pronouns [определённые местоимения] as
«every [каждый], any [любой]» and

—Relative
pronouns [относительные местоимения]. Relative
pronouns have exactly the same forms as the interrogative pronouns;
however, they are used not to ask a question but to connect clauses.
Thus in the sentence: «Кто пришёл»
[Who has come?] the pronoun кто is
interrogative, whereas in the sentence:  «Я не
знаю, кто пришёл»
[I don’t know who has come] кто is
relative.

Preposition
[предлог]  —
a word or group of words used before a noun or pronoun to relate it
grammatically or semantically to some other constituent of a
sentence.

E.g. on
[на], in [в], about [о], with [с]…

Conjunction [союз] —
 any word or group of words, other than a relative pronoun, that
connects words, phrases, or clauses.

E.g. and
[и], but [но], while [в то время как]…

Particle
[частица]- a
function word, esp (in certain languages) a word belonging to an
uninflected class having suprasegmental or grammatical function

E.g. not
[не]

Interjection
[междометие] —
a word or phrase that is characteristically used in syntactic
isolation and that usually expresses sudden emotion; expletive

E.g. Wow!,
Oh!, Ну! Ой-ой-ой

It’s
essential to know parts of speech when studying a foreign language.
One can compare it to knowing the difference between your vegetables
and your fruit, your grains and your nuts, your dairy and your water.
So please take a moment to learn your parts of speech and be proud of
yourself that you did:) 

Generally
speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech
is
far from being solved. Some words cannot find their proper place. The
most
striking
example here is the class of adverbs. Some language analysts call it
a
ragbag,
a dustbin (Frank Palmer), Russian academician V.V.Vinogradov defined

the
class of adverbs in the Russian language as мусорная куча.
It can be explained
by
the fact that to the class of adverbs belong those words that cannot
find their
place
anywhere else. At the same time, there are no grounds for grouping
them
together
either. Compare: perfectly (She speaks English perfectly) and again
(He is
here
again). Examples are numerous (all temporals). There are some words
that do
not
belong anywhere — e.g. after all. Speaking about after all it should
be
mentioned
that this unit is quite often used by native speakers, and
practically
never
by our students. Some more striking examples: anyway, actually, in
fact. The
problem
is that if these words belong nowhere, there is no place for them in
the
system
of words, then how can we use them correctly? What makes things worse
is
the
fact that these words are devoid of nominative power, and they have
no direct
equivalents
in Russian. Meanwhile, native speakers use these
words
subconsciously,
without realizing how they work.

1. The
   noun and its morphological features. Syntactic features of the noun.

General
characteristics

The
noun is the central lexical unit of language. It is the main
nominative
unit
of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised
by three
criteria:
semantic (the meaning), morphological (the form and
grammaticalcategories) and syntactical (functions, distribution).
Semantic features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical
meaning
of thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of
classification,
nouns fall into several subclasses:

1.
According to the type of nomination they may be proper and common;

2.
According to the form of existence they may be animate and
inanimate. Animate nouns in their turn fall into human and non-human.

3.
According to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable and
uncountable.

This
set of subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of
the
different
principles of classification.

Morphological
features
of the noun. In accordance with the morphological
structure
of the stems all nouns can be classified into: simple, derived (stem
+
affix,
affix + stem – thingness); compound (stem+ stem – armchair ) and
composite
(the Hague). The noun has morphological categories of number and
case.
Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.

Syntactic
features
of the noun. The noun can be used in the sentence in all
syntactic
functions but predicate. Speaking about noun combinability, we can
say
that
it can go into right-hand and left-hand connections with practically
all parts of
speech.
That is why practically all parts of speech but the verb can act as
noun
determiners.
However, the most common noun determiners are considered to be
articles,
pronouns, numerals, adjectives and nouns themselves in the common and
genitive
case.

1. Semantic
   and grammatical properties of the noun (common and proper).

• Nouns and noun phrases
  perform ten main grammatical functions in
  the English language. The following article lists the
  ten functions and
  provides examples to illustrate their use.
  Nouns in
  English are traditionally described as naming «persons, places,
  things, and ideas.» Pronouns are
  a subcategory
  of nouns. Noun phrases
  are formed by a noun or
  pronoun and any modifiers, complements, or determiners including
  adjectives, determiners, prepositional phrases,noun clauses,
  and verb phrases.

Nouns and noun phrases
perform ten grammatical functions in
the English language. The ten functions are:

1. Subject

2. Subject
   complement

3. Direct
   object

4. Object
   complement

5. Indirect
   object

6. Prepositional
   complement

7. Noun phrase
   modifier

8. Determinative

9. Appositive

10. Adverbial

The
following sections discuss
the ten functions and
include examples to illustrate use.

Nouns and noun phrases
first function as
the subject of clauses. A subject is a word, phrase, or clause
which performsthe
action of or acts upon the verb.
Clauses contain both a subject and a predicate. The following
italicized nounphrases
are examples of subjects:

• • The
    puppy has
    chewed on the bone.

  • Weeds are
    taking over the garden.

  • You
    and I hike
    in the park.

Although
other grammatical forms can function as
the subject of clauses, nouns and noun phrases
most frequently perform the function.

• Subject Complement

Nouns and noun phrases
secondly function as
subject complements. A subject complement is a word, phrase, or
clause that follows a copular verb and describes the subject. Copular
verbs are also called linking and state-of-being
verbs and
include verbs like be, become,
and seem.
The following italicized noun phrases
are examples of subject complements:

• The
  man was a
  nurse.

• Our
  dog is a
  Shih Tzu.

• Her
  mother will become the
  school librarian.

• Nouns
  and Noun Phrases

• irect
  Object

Nouns and noun phrases
can also function as
direct objects. A direct object is a word, phrase, or clause that
follows a transitive verb and answers the question «who?»
or «what?» receives the action of the verb. The following
italicized nounphrases
are examples of direct objects:

• Herbivores
  eat plants.

• The
  child finally swallowed the
  sour-tasting medication.

• Your
  boyfriend just kissed the
  girl in the ostentatious hat.

• Object
  Complement

Similarly
to subject complements, nouns and noun phrases
can function as
object complements. An object complement is a word, phrase, or clause
that directly follows and describes the direct object. The following
italicized noun phrases
are examples of object complements:

• • The
    Provost named my supervisor the
    new Dean.

  • We
    elected you team
    leader.

  • Your
    cousins named their daughter Rainbow!

• Indirect
  Object

Nouns and noun phrases
can also function as
indirect objects. An indirect object is a word, phrase, or clause
that follows a ditransitive verb and answers the question «to or
for whom?» or «to or for what» is the action of the
verb performed. The following italicized noun phrases
are examples of indirect objects:

• Our
  groomer gave the
  dog a
  bath.

• My
  professor loaned me a
  book.

• The
  groom bought his
  new bride a
  wedding present.

• Prepositional
  Complement

Nouns and noun phrases function as
prepositional complements. A prepositional complement is a word,
phrase, or clause that directly follows the preposition in
a prepositional phrase. Prepositional complements are also called
complements of prepositions and objects of prepositions. The
following italicized noun phrases
are examples of prepositional complements:

• That
  little boy gave his toy to his
  baby brother.

• The
  mother warned her children not to go into the
  woods.

• During his
  vacation,
  the man decided to move to the
  Tropics.

• Noun Phrase Modifier

Although
adjectives are traditionally defined as words that
describe nouns, nouns and noun phrases
can function asnoun phrase
modifiers. A noun
phrase modifier is
a word, phrase, or clause that describes another noun or nounphrase.
The following italicized noun phrases
are examples of noun phrase
modifiers:

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