In traditional grammar, word is the basic unit of language.A word refers to a speech sound, or a mixture of two or more speech sounds in both written and verbal form of language. A word works as a symbol to represent/refer to something/someone in language to communicate a specific meaning.
Contents
- 1 What is word and its example?
- 2 What is word and its types?
- 3 What is word linguistics?
- 4 What is the meaning of word?
- 5 What are words called?
- 6 What is word in language?
- 7 What is a word class in grammar?
- 8 Why do we define words?
- 9 Why do we say word?
- 10 What is morpheme and word?
- 11 What is word Slideshare?
- 12 Is word a noun or verb?
- 13 What are the parts of a word?
- 14 What is word Wikipedia?
- 15 What type of word is there?
- 16 What is word boundaries?
- 17 What is called sentence?
- 18 Is your name a word?
- 19 What are the 4 main word classes?
- 20 What is word class in syntax?
What is word and its example?
The definition of a word is a letter or group of letters that has meaning when spoken or written. An example of a word is dog.An example of words are the seventeen sets of letters that are written to form this sentence.
What is word and its types?
There are eight types of words that are often referred to as ‘word classes’ or ‘parts of speech’ and are commonly distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.These are the different types of words in the English language.
What is word linguistics?
In linguistics, a word of a spoken language can be defined as the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be uttered in isolation with objective or practical meaning.In many languages, the notion of what constitutes a “word” may be learned as part of learning the writing system.
What is the meaning of word?
1 : a sound or combination of sounds that has meaning and is spoken by a human being. 2 : a written or printed letter or letters standing for a spoken word. 3 : a brief remark or conversation I’d like a word with you.
What are words called?
All words belong to categories called word classes (or parts of speech) according to the part they play in a sentence. The main word classes in English are listed below. Noun. Verb. Adjective.
What is word in language?
A word is a speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation in writing, that symbolizes and communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes. The branch of linguistics that studies word structures is called morphology.
A word class is a group of words that have the same basic behaviour, for example nouns, adjectives, or verbs.
Why do we define words?
The definition of definition is “a statement expressing the essential nature of something.” At least that’s one way Webster defines the word.Because definitions enable us to have a common understanding of a word or subject; they allow us to all be on the same page when discussing or reading about an issue.
Why do we say word?
‘Word’ in slang is a word one would use to indicate acknowledgement, approval, recognition or affirmation, of something somebody else just said.
What is morpheme and word?
Word vs Morpheme
A morpheme is usually considered as the smallest element of a word or else a grammar element, whereas a word is a complete meaningful element of language.
What is word Slideshare?
•“A word’ is a free morpheme or a combination of morphemes that together form a basic segment of speech” .
Is word a noun or verb?
word used as a noun:
A distinct unit of language (sounds in speech or written letters) with a particular meaning, composed of one or more morphemes, and also of one or more phonemes that determine its sound pattern. A distinct unit of language which is approved by some authority.
What are the parts of a word?
The parts of a word are called morphemes. These include suffixes, prefixes and root words. Take the word ‘microbiology,’ for example.
What is word Wikipedia?
A word is something spoken by the mouth, that can be pronounced. In alphabetic writing, it is a collection of letters used together to communicate a meaning. These can also usually be pronounced.Some words have different pronunciation, for example, ‘wind’ (the noun) and ‘wind’ (the verb) are pronounced differently.
What type of word is there?
The word “there” have multiple functions. In verbal and written English, the word can be used as an adverb, a pronoun, a noun, an interjection, or an adjective. This word is classified as an adverb if it is used to modify a verb in the sentence.
What is word boundaries?
A word boundary is a zero-width test between two characters. To pass the test, there must be a word character on one side, and a non-word character on the other side. It does not matter which side each character appears on, but there must be one of each.
What is called sentence?
A sentence is a set of words that are put together to mean something. A sentence is the basic unit of language which expresses a complete thought. It does this by following the grammatical basic rules of syntax.A complete sentence has at least a subject and a main verb to state (declare) a complete thought.
Is your name a word?
Yes, names are words. Specifically, they are proper nouns: they refer to specific people, places, or things. “John” is a proper noun; “ground” is a common noun. But both are words.
What are the 4 main word classes?
There are four major word classes: verb, noun, adjective, adverb.
What is word class in syntax?
In English grammar, a word class is a set of words that display the same formal properties, especially their inflections and distribution.It is also variously called grammatical category, lexical category, and syntactic category (although these terms are not wholly or universally synonymous).
The words
of language, depending on various formal and semantic features,
are divided into grammatically relevant sets or classes. The
traditional grammatical classes of words are called «parts
of speech». Since the
word is distinguished not only by grammatical, but also by
semantico-lexemic properties, some scholars refer to parts of speech
as «lexico-grammatical»
series of words, or as «lexico-grammatical categories.
It
should be noted that the term «part of speech» is purely
traditional and
conventional, it cannot be taken as in any way defining or
explanatory. This name was introduced in the grammatical
teaching of Ancient Greece, where the concept of the sentence was not
yet explicitly identified
in distinction to the general idea of speech, and where,
consequently, no
strict differentiation was drawn between the word as a vocabulary
unit and the word as a functional element of the sentence.
In
modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of
the three
criteria:
«semantic»,
«formal», and «functional».
The
semantic
criterion
presupposes the evaluation of the generalized meaning, which
is characteristic of all the subsets of words constituting a given
part of speech. This meaning is understood as the «categorial
meaning of
the part of speech».
The
formal criterion
provides for the exposition of the
specific inflexional and derivational (word-building) features of
allthe
lexemic subsets of a part of speech.
The
functional criterion
concerns the
syntactic role of words in the sentence typical of a part of speech.
The said
three factors of categorial characterization of words are
conventionally
referred to as, respectively, «meaning», «form»,
and «function».
In accord
with the described criteria, words on the upper level of
classification
are divided into notional
and functional,
which reflects their division
in the earlier grammatical tradition into changeable and
unchangeable.
To the
notional
parts of speech
of the English language belong the noun, the adjective, the numeral,
the pronoun, the verb, the adverb.
Contrasted against the
notional parts of speech are words of incomplete nominative
meaning and non-self-dependent, mediatory functions in the sentence.
These are functional parts of speech.
To
the basic functional
series of words
in English belong the article, the
preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the
interjection.
Each part of speech after its
identification is further subdivided into subseries in accord with
various particular semantico-functional and formal features of the
constituent words. This subdivision is sometimes called
«subcategorization» of parts of speech.
Thus, nouns
are subcategorized into proper and common, animate and
inanimate, countable and uncountable, concrete and abstract,
etc.
Verbs
are subcategorized into fully predicative and partially predicative,
transitive and intransitive, actional and statal, purely nominative
and evaluative, etc.
Adjectives
are subcategorized into qualitative and relative, of constant
feature and temporary feature (the latter are referred to as
«statives» and identified by some scholars as a separate
part of speech under the heading of «category of state»),
factual and evaluative, etc.
The adverb,
the numeral, the pronoun are also subject to the corresponding
subcategorizations.
We have
drawn a general outline of the division of the lexicon into part
of speech classes developed by modern linguists on the lines of
traditional
morphology.
Alongside
the three-criteria principle of dividing the words into grammatical
(lexico-grammatical) classes, modern linguistics has developed
another, narrower principle
of word-class identification based on syntactic featuring of words
only.
The fact is
that the three-criteria principle faces a special difficulty in
determining the part of speech status of such lexemes as have
morphological characteristics of notional words, but are
essentially distinguished from notional words by their playing
the role of grammatical mediators in phrases and sentences. Here
belong, for instance, modal verbs
together with their equivalents — suppletive fillers, auxiliary
verbs, aspective
verbs, intensifying adverbs, determiner pronouns. This difficulty,
consisting in the intersection of heterogeneous properties in the
established
word-classes, can evidently be overcome by recognizing only one
criterion of the three as decisive.
Comparing
the syntactico-distributional classification of words with the
traditional part of speech division of words, one cannot but see the
similarity of the general schemes of the two: the opposition of
notional and
functional words, the four absolutely cardinal classes of notional
words (since numerals and pronouns have no positional functions of
their
own and serve as pro-nounal and pro-adjectival elements), the
interpretation of functional words as syntactic mediators and
their formal representation
by the list.
However,
under these unquestionable traits of similarity are distinctly
revealed
essential features of difference, the proper evaluation of which
allows us to make some important generalizations about the structure
of the
lexemic system of language.
As
a result of the undertaken analysis
we have obtained a foundation
for dividing the whole of the lexicon at the upper level of
classification
into three unequal parts.
The
first part of the lexicon forming an open set includes an
indefinitely large number of notional words which have a
complete nominative
function. In accord with the said function, these words can be re
ferred to as «names»: nouns as substance names, verbs as
process names, adjectives
as primary property names and adverbs as secondary property
names. The whole notional set is represented by the four-stage
derivational
paradigm of nomination.
The
second part of the lexicon forming a closed set includes substitutes
of names (pro-names). Here belong pronouns, and also broad-meaning
notional words which constitute various marginal subsets.
The
third part of the lexicon also forming a closed set includes
specifiers
of names. These are function-categorial words of various
servo-status.
Substitutes
of names (pro-names) and specifiers of names, while standing
with the names in nominative correlation as elements of the lexicon,
at
the same time serve as connecting links between the names within the
lexicon
and their actual uses in the sentences of living speech.
ЛИТЕРАТУРА:
-
Блох, М.Я.
Теоретическая грамматика английского
языка : Учеб. / М.Я. Блох. – 5–е изд.,
стер. – М. : Высш. шк., 2006. – 423 с. -
Блох, М.Я.
Теоретические основы грамматики :
учеб. / М.Я. Блох. – 3–е изд., испр. –
М. : Высш. шк., 2002. – 160 с. -
Blokh,
M.Y. A course in theoretical English grammar / M.Y. Blokh. –
M., 1983.
6
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Words don’t only mean something; they also do something. In the English language, words are grouped into word classes based on their function, i.e. what they do in a phrase or sentence. In total, there are nine word classes in English.
Word class meaning and example
All words can be categorised into classes within a language based on their function and purpose.
An example of various word classes is ‘The cat ate a cupcake quickly.’
-
The = a determiner
-
cat = a noun
-
ate = a verb
-
a = determiner
-
cupcake = noun
-
quickly = an adverb
Word class function
The function of a word class, also known as a part of speech, is to classify words according to their grammatical properties and the roles they play in sentences. By assigning words to different word classes, we can understand how they should be used in context and how they relate to other words in a sentence.
Each word class has its own unique set of characteristics and rules for usage, and understanding the function of word classes is essential for effective communication in English. Knowing our word classes allows us to create clear and grammatically correct sentences that convey our intended meaning.
Word classes in English
In English, there are four main word classes; nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These are considered lexical words, and they provide the main meaning of a phrase or sentence.
The other five word classes are; prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These are considered functional words, and they provide structural and relational information in a sentence or phrase.
Don’t worry if it sounds a bit confusing right now. Read ahead and you’ll be a master of the different types of word classes in no time!
| All word classes | Definition | Examples of word classification |
| Noun | A word that represents a person, place, thing, or idea. | cat, house, plant |
| Pronoun | A word that is used in place of a noun to avoid repetition. | he, she, they, it |
| Verb | A word that expresses action, occurrence, or state of being. | run, sing, grow |
| Adjective | A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun. | blue, tall, happy |
| Adverb | A word that describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb. | quickly, very |
| Preposition | A word that shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. | in, on, at |
| Conjunction | A word that connects words, phrases, or clauses. | and, or, but |
| Interjection | A word that expresses strong emotions or feelings. | wow, oh, ouch |
| Determiners | A word that clarifies information about the quantity, location, or ownership of the noun | Articles like ‘the’ and ‘an’, and quantifiers like ‘some’ and ‘all’. |
The four main word classes
In the English language, there are four main word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Let’s look at all the word classes in detail.
Nouns
Nouns are the words we use to describe people, places, objects, feelings, concepts, etc. Usually, nouns are tangible (touchable) things, such as a table, a person, or a building.
However, we also have abstract nouns, which are things we can feel and describe but can’t necessarily see or touch, such as love, honour, or excitement. Proper nouns are the names we give to specific and official people, places, or things, such as England, Claire, or Hoover.
Cat
House
School
Britain
Harry
Book
Hatred
‘My sister went to school.‘
Verbs
Verbs are words that show action, event, feeling, or state of being. This can be a physical action or event, or it can be a feeling that is experienced.
Lexical verbs are considered one of the four main word classes, and auxiliary verbs are not. Lexical verbs are the main verb in a sentence that shows action, event, feeling, or state of being, such as walk, ran, felt, and want, whereas an auxiliary verb helps the main verb and expresses grammatical meaning, such as has, is, and do.
Run
Walk
Swim
Curse
Wish
Help
Leave
‘She wished for a sunny day.’
Adjectives
Adjectives are words used to modify nouns, usually by describing them. Adjectives describe an attribute, quality, or state of being of the noun.
Long
Short
Friendly
Broken
Loud
Embarrassed
Dull
Boring
‘The friendly woman wore a beautiful dress.’
Fig 1. Adjectives can describe the woman and the dress
Adverbs
Adverbs are words that work alongside verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. They provide further descriptions of how, where, when, and how often something is done.
Quickly
Softly
Very
More
Too
Loudly
‘The music was too loud.’
All of the above examples are lexical word classes and carry most of the meaning in a sentence. They make up the majority of the words in the English language.
The other five word classes
The other five remaining word classes are; prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These words are considered functional words and are used to explain grammatical and structural relationships between words.
For example, prepositions can be used to explain where one object is in relation to another.
Prepositions
Prepositions are used to show the relationship between words in terms of place, time, direction, and agency.
In
At
On
Towards
To
Through
Into
By
With
‘They went through the tunnel.’
Pronouns
Pronouns take the place of a noun or a noun phrase in a sentence. They often refer to a noun that has already been mentioned and are commonly used to avoid repetition.
Chloe (noun) → she (pronoun)
Chloe’s dog → her dog (possessive pronoun)
There are several different types of pronouns; let’s look at some examples of each.
- He, she, it, they — personal pronouns
- His, hers, its, theirs, mine, ours — possessive pronouns
- Himself, herself, myself, ourselves, themselves — reflexive pronouns
- This, that, those, these — demonstrative pronouns
- Anyone, somebody, everyone, anything, something — Indefinite pronouns
- Which, what, that, who, who — Relative pronouns
‘She sat on the chair which was broken.’
Determiners
Determiners work alongside nouns to clarify information about the quantity, location, or ownership of the noun. It ‘determines’ exactly what is being referred to. Much like pronouns, there are also several different types of determiners.
- The, a, an — articles
- This, that, those — you might recognise these for demonstrative pronouns are also determiners
- One, two, three etc. — cardinal numbers
- First, second, third etc. — ordinal numbers
- Some, most, all — quantifiers
- Other, another — difference words
‘The first restaurant is better than the other.’
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are words that connect other words, phrases, and clauses together within a sentence. There are three main types of conjunctions;
-
Coordinating conjunctions — these link independent clauses together.
-
Subordinating conjunctions — these link dependent clauses to independent clauses.
- Correlative conjunctions — words that work in pairs to join two parts of a sentence of equal importance.
For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so — coordinating conjunctions
After, as, because, when, while, before, if, even though — subordinating conjunctions
Either/or, neither/nor, both/and — correlative conjunctions
‘If it rains, I’m not going out.’
Interjections
Interjections are exclamatory words used to express an emotion or a reaction. They often stand alone from the rest of the sentence and are accompanied by an exclamation mark.
Oh
Oops!
Phew!
Ahh!
‘Oh, what a surprise!’
Word class: lexical classes and function classes
A helpful way to understand lexical word classes is to see them as the building blocks of sentences. If the lexical word classes are the blocks themselves, then the function word classes are the cement holding the words together and giving structure to the sentence.
Fig 2. Lexical and functional word classes
In this diagram, the lexical classes are in blue and the function classes are in yellow. We can see that the words in blue provide the key information, and the words in yellow bring this information together in a structured way.
Word class examples
Sometimes it can be tricky to know exactly which word class a word belongs to. Some words can function as more than one word class depending on how they are used in a sentence. For this reason, we must look at words in context, i.e. how a word works within the sentence. Take a look at the following examples of word classes to see the importance of word class categorisation.
The dog will bark if you open the door.
The tree bark was dark and rugged.
Here we can see that the same word (bark) has a different meaning and different word class in each sentence. In the first example, ‘bark’ is used as a verb, and in the second as a noun (an object in this case).
I left my sunglasses on the beach.
The horse stood on Sarah’s left foot.
In the first sentence, the word ‘left’ is used as a verb (an action), and in the second, it is used to modify the noun (foot). In this case, it is an adjective.
I run every day
I went for a run
In this example, ‘run’ can be a verb or a noun.
Word Class — Key takeaways
-
We group words into word classes based on the function they perform in a sentence.
-
The four main word classes are nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. These are lexical classes that give meaning to a sentence.
-
The other five word classes are prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and interjections. These are function classes that are used to explain grammatical and structural relationships between words.
-
It is important to look at the context of a sentence in order to work out which word class a word belongs to.
Frequently Asked Questions about Word Class
A word class is a group of words that have similar properties and play a similar role in a sentence.
Some examples of how some words can function as more than one word class include the way ‘run’ can be a verb (‘I run every day’) or a noun (‘I went for a run’). Similarly, ‘well’ can be an adverb (‘He plays the guitar well’) or an adjective (‘She’s feeling well today’).
The nine word classes are; Nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, interjections.
Categorising words into word classes helps us to understand the function the word is playing within a sentence.
Parts of speech is another term for word classes.
The different groups of word classes include lexical classes that act as the building blocks of a sentence e.g. nouns. The other word classes are function classes that act as the ‘glue’ and give grammatical information in a sentence e.g. prepositions.
The word classes for all, that, and the is:
‘All’ = determiner (quantifier)
‘That’ = pronoun and/or determiner (demonstrative pronoun)
‘The’ = determiner (article)
Final Word Class Quiz
Word Class Quiz — Teste dein Wissen
Question
A word can only belong to one type of noun. True or false?
Show answer
Answer
This is false. A word can belong to multiple categories of nouns and this may change according to the context of the word.
Show question
Question
Name the two principal categories of nouns.
Show answer
Answer
The two principal types of nouns are ‘common nouns’ and ‘proper nouns’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following is an example of a proper noun?
Show answer
Question
Name the 6 types of common nouns discussed in the text.
Show answer
Answer
Concrete nouns, abstract nouns, countable nouns, uncountable nouns, collective nouns, and compound nouns.
Show question
Question
What is the difference between a concrete noun and an abstract noun?
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Answer
A concrete noun is a thing that physically exists. We can usually touch this thing and measure its proportions. An abstract noun, however, does not physically exist. It is a concept, idea, or feeling that only exists within the mind.
Show question
Question
Pick out the concrete noun from the following:
Show answer
Question
Pick out the abstract noun from the following:
Show answer
Question
What is the difference between a countable and an uncountable noun? Can you think of an example for each?
Show answer
Answer
A countable noun is a thing that can be ‘counted’, i.e. it can exist in the plural. Some examples include ‘bottle’, ‘dog’ and ‘boy’. These are often concrete nouns.
An uncountable noun is something that can not be counted, so you often cannot place a number in front of it. Examples include ‘love’, ‘joy’, and ‘milk’.
Show question
Question
Pick out the collective noun from the following:
Show answer
Question
What is the collective noun for a group of sheep?
Show answer
Answer
The collective noun is a ‘flock’, as in ‘flock of sheep’.
Show question
Question
The word ‘greenhouse’ is a compound noun. True or false?
Show answer
Answer
This is true. The word ‘greenhouse’ is a compound noun as it is made up of two separate words ‘green’ and ‘house’. These come together to form a new word.
Show question
Question
What are the adjectives in this sentence?: ‘The little boy climbed up the big, green tree’
Show answer
Answer
The adjectives are ‘little’ and ‘big’, and ‘green’ as they describe features about the nouns.
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Question
Place the adjectives in this sentence into the correct order: the wooden blue big ship sailed across the Indian vast scary ocean.
Show answer
Answer
The big, blue, wooden ship sailed across the vast, scary, Indian ocean.
Show question
Question
What are the 3 different positions in which an adjective can be placed?
Show answer
Answer
An adjective can be placed before a noun (pre-modification), after a noun (post-modification), or following a verb as a complement.
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Question
In this sentence, does the adjective pre-modify or post-modify the noun? ‘The unicorn is angry’.
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Answer
The adjective ‘angry’ post-modifies the noun ‘unicorn’.
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Question
In this sentence, does the adjective pre-modify or post-modify the noun? ‘It is a scary unicorn’.
Show answer
Answer
The adjective ‘scary’ pre-modifies the noun ‘unicorn’.
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Question
What kind of adjectives are ‘purple’ and ‘shiny’?
Show answer
Answer
‘Purple’ and ‘Shiny’ are qualitative adjectives as they describe a quality or feature of a noun
Show question
Question
What kind of adjectives are ‘ugly’ and ‘easy’?
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Answer
The words ‘ugly’ and ‘easy’ are evaluative adjectives as they give a subjective opinion on the noun.
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Question
Which of the following adjectives is an absolute adjective?
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Question
Which of these adjectives is a classifying adjective?
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Question
Convert the noun ‘quick’ to its comparative form.
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Answer
The comparative form of ‘quick’ is ‘quicker’.
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Question
Convert the noun ‘slow’ to its superlative form.
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Answer
The comparative form of ‘slow’ is ‘slowest’.
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Question
What is an adjective phrase?
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Answer
An adjective phrase is a group of words that is ‘built’ around the adjective (it takes centre stage in the sentence). For example, in the phrase ‘the dog is big’ the word ‘big’ is the most important information.
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Question
Give 2 examples of suffixes that are typical of adjectives.
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Answer
Suffixes typical of adjectives include -able, -ible, -ful, -y, -less, -ous, -some, -ive, -ish, -al.
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Question
What is the difference between a main verb and an auxiliary verb?
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Answer
A main verb is a verb that can stand on its own and carries most of the meaning in a verb phrase. For example, ‘run’, ‘find’. Auxiliary verbs cannot stand alone, instead, they work alongside a main verb and ‘help’ the verb to express more grammatical information e.g. tense, mood, possibility.
Show question
Question
What is the difference between a primary auxiliary verb and a modal auxiliary verb?
Show answer
Answer
Primary auxiliary verbs consist of the various forms of ‘to have’, ‘to be’, and ‘to do’ e.g. ‘had’, ‘was’, ‘done’. They help to express a verb’s tense, voice, or mood. Modal auxiliary verbs show possibility, ability, permission, or obligation. There are 9 auxiliary verbs including ‘could’, ‘will’, might’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following are primary auxiliary verbs?
-
Is
-
Play
-
Have
-
Run
-
Does
-
Could
Show answer
Answer
The primary auxiliary verbs in this list are ‘is’, ‘have’, and ‘does’. They are all forms of the main primary auxiliary verbs ‘to have’, ‘to be’, and ‘to do’. ‘Play’ and ‘run’ are main verbs and ‘could’ is a modal auxiliary verb.
Show question
Question
Name 6 out of the 9 modal auxiliary verbs.
Show answer
Answer
Answers include: Could, would, should, may, might, can, will, must, shall
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Question
‘The fairies were asleep’. In this sentence, is the verb ‘were’ a linking verb or an auxiliary verb?
Show answer
Answer
The word ‘were’ is used as a linking verb as it stands alone in the sentence. It is used to link the subject (fairies) and the adjective (asleep).
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Question
What is the difference between dynamic verbs and stative verbs?
Show answer
Answer
A dynamic verb describes an action or process done by a noun or subject. They are thought of as ‘action verbs’ e.g. ‘kick’, ‘run’, ‘eat’. Stative verbs describe the state of being of a person or thing. These are states that are not necessarily physical action e.g. ‘know’, ‘love’, ‘suppose’.
Show question
Question
Which of the following are dynamic verbs and which are stative verbs?
-
Drink
-
Prefer
-
Talk
-
Seem
-
Understand
-
Write
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The dynamic verbs are ‘drink’, ‘talk’, and ‘write’ as they all describe an action. The stative verbs are ‘prefer’, ‘seem’, and ‘understand’ as they all describe a state of being.
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What is an imperative verb?
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Imperative verbs are verbs used to give orders, give instructions, make a request or give warning. They tell someone to do something. For example, ‘clean your room!’.
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Inflections give information about tense, person, number, mood, or voice. True or false?
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What information does the inflection ‘-ing’ give for a verb?
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The inflection ‘-ing’ is often used to show that an action or state is continuous and ongoing.
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How do you know if a verb is irregular?
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An irregular verb does not take the regular inflections, instead the whole word is spelt a different way. For example, begin becomes ‘began’ or ‘begun’. We can’t add the regular past tense inflection -ed as this would become ‘beginned’ which doesn’t make sense.
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Suffixes can never signal what word class a word belongs to. True or false?
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False. Suffixes can signal what word class a word belongs to. For example, ‘-ify’ is a common suffix for verbs (‘identity’, ‘simplify’)
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A verb phrase is built around a noun. True or false?
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False. A verb phrase is a group of words that has a main verb along with any other auxiliary verbs that ‘help’ the main verb. For example, ‘could eat’ is a verb phrase as it contains a main verb (‘could’) and an auxiliary verb (‘could’).
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Which of the following are multi-word verbs?
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Shake
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Rely on
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Dancing
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Look up to
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The verbs ‘rely on’ and ‘look up to’ are multi-word verbs as they consist of a verb that has one or more prepositions or particles linked to it.
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What is the difference between a transition verb and an intransitive verb?
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Transitive verbs are verbs that require an object in order to make sense. For example, the word ‘bring’ requires an object that is brought (‘I bring news’). Intransitive verbs do not require an object to complete the meaning of the sentence e.g. ‘exist’ (‘I exist’).
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An adverb is a word that gives more information about a verb, adjective, another adverb, or a full clause.
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What are the 3 ways we can use adverbs?
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We can use adverbs to modify a word (modifying adverbs), to intensify a word (intensifying adverbs), or to connect two clauses (connecting adverbs).
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What are modifying adverbs?
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Modifying adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They add further information about the word.
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‘Additionally’, ‘likewise’, and ‘consequently’ are examples of connecting adverbs. True or false?
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True! Connecting adverbs are words used to connect two independent clauses.
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What are intensifying adverbs?
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Intensifying adverbs are words used to strengthen the meaning of an adjective, another adverb, or a verb. In other words, they ‘intensify’ another word.
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Which of the following are intensifying adverbs?
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Calmly
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Incredibly
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Enough
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Greatly
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The intensifying adverbs are ‘incredibly’ and ‘greatly’. These strengthen the meaning of a word.
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Name the main types of adverbs
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The main adverbs are; adverbs of place, adverbs of time, adverbs of manner, adverbs of frequency, adverbs of degree, adverbs of probability, and adverbs of purpose.
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What are adverbs of time?
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Adverbs of time are the ‘when?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘when is the action done?’ e.g. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’
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Which of the following are adverbs of frequency?
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Usually
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Patiently
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Occasionally
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Nowhere
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The adverbs of frequency are ‘usually’ and ‘occasionally’. They are the ‘how often?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘how often is the action done?’.
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What are adverbs of place?
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Adverbs of place are the ‘where?’ adverbs. They answer the question ‘where is the action done?’. For example, ‘outside’ or ‘elsewhere’.
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Which of the following are adverbs of manner?
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Never
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Carelessly
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Kindly
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Inside
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The words ‘carelessly’ and ‘kindly’ are adverbs of manner. They are the ‘how?’ adverbs that answer the question ‘how is the action done?’.
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Word: The Definition & Criteria
In traditional grammar, word is the basic unit of language. Words can be classified according to their action and meaning, but it is challenging to define.
A word refers to a speech sound, or a mixture of two or more speech sounds in both written and verbal form of language. A word works as a symbol to represent/refer to something/someone in language to communicate a specific meaning.
Example : ‘love’, ‘cricket’, ‘sky’ etc.
«[A word is the] smallest unit of grammar that can stand alone as a complete utterance, separated by spaces in written language and potentially by pauses in speech.» (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Morphology, a branch of linguistics, studies the formation of words. The branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words is called lexical semantics.
See More:
Online English Grammar Course
Free Online Exercise of English Grammar
There are several criteria for a speech sound, or a combination of some speech sounds to be called a word.
- There must be a potential pause in speech and a space in written form between two words.
For instance, suppose ‘ball’ and ‘bat’ are two different words. So, if we use them in a sentence, we must have a potential pause after pronouncing each of them. It cannot be like “Idonotplaywithbatball.” If we take pause, these sounds can be regarded as seven distinct words which are ‘I,’ ‘do,’ ‘not,’ ‘play,’ ‘with,’ ‘bat,’ and ‘ball.’ - Every word must contain at least one root. If you break this root, it cannot be a word anymore.
For example, the word ‘unfaithful’ has a root ‘faith.’ If we break ‘faith’ into ‘fa’ and ‘ith,’ these sounds will not be regarded as words. - Every word must have a meaning.
For example, the sound ‘lakkanah’ has no meaning in the English language. So, it cannot be an English word.
We intuitively know what a WORD is. In written language words are separated by spaces. In spoken language you can sometimes hear a pause between them, although in most cases there’s nothing noticeable that separates words in spoken language.
We can distinguish the orthographic word, the grammatical word and the lexeme.
An ORTHOGRAPHIC WORD is a word form separated by spaces from other orthographic words in written texts and the corresponding form in spoken language.
In the example:
She wanted to win the game.
there are six orthographic words: she, wanted, to, win, the and game.
A GRAMMATICAL WORD is a word form used for a specific grammatical purpose.
For example in the sentence:
That man over there said that he would like to talk to you.
we have the word THAT used twice. This is one orthographic word, but we’re dealing with two grammatical words here: the first THAT is a demonstrative adjective and the other THAT is a conjunction.
A LEXEME is a group of word forms with the same basic meaning that belong to the same word class.
For example the words AM, WAS, IS belong to one lexeme, as they have the same basic meaning and are all verbs. Also the words COME and CAME belong to the same lexeme.
How do they relate to one another?
In many cases orthographic and grammatical words overlap. For example in the sentence:
They bought the house.
there are four orthographic words and four grammatical words, so there is one-to-one correspondence in this case.
But if we slightly modify the sentence like so:
They didn’t buy the house.
there are now five orthographic words and six grammatical words. This is because the orthographic word DIDN’T represents a sequence of two grammatical words: DID + NOT.
It may also be the other way around. In the sentence:
I kind of like it.
there are five orthographic words, but only four grammatical words, because the two orthographic words KIND OF actually represent a single grammatical word.
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