Word categories in grammar

1. The
   notion of ‘grammatical meaning’.

The word
combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and
grammatical. Lexical meaning
is the individual meaning of the word (e.g. table).
Grammatical meaning
is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass. For example, the
class of nouns has the grammatical meaning of thingness.
If we take a noun (table)
we may say that it possesses its individual lexical meaning (it
corresponds to a definite piece of furniture) and the grammatical
meaning of thingness
(this is the meaning of the whole class). Besides, the noun ‘table’
has the grammatical meaning of a subclass – countableness.
Any verb combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical
meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote actions or states. An
adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the
grammatical meaning of the whole class of adjectives –
qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities. Adverbs possess
the grammatical meaning of adverbiality – the ability to denote
quality of qualities.

There are some classes of
words that are devoid of any lexical meaning and possess the
grammatical meaning only. This can be explained by the fact that they
have no referents in the objective reality. All function words belong
to this group – articles, particles, prepositions, etc.

1. Types
   of grammatical meaning.

The
grammatical meaning may be explicit and implicit. The implicit
grammatical meaning is not expressed
formally (e.g. the word table does
not contain any hints in its form as to it being inanimate). The
explicit grammatical
meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker. In
the word cats the
grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the form of the noun;
cat’s –
here the grammatical meaning of possessiveness is shown by the form
‘s; is
asked – shows the explicit
grammatical meaning of passiveness.

The
implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and
dependent. The general
grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part
of speech (e.g. nouns – the general grammatical meaning of
thingness). The dependent
grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part
of speech. For instance, any verb possesses the dependent grammatical
meaning of transitivity/intransitivity,
terminativeness/non-terminativeness, stativeness/non-stativeness;
nouns have the dependent grammatical meaning of
contableness/uncountableness and animateness/inanimateness. The most
important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it
influences the realization of grammatical categories restricting them
to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness influences the realization of the
grammatical category of number as the number category is realized
only within the subclass of countable nouns, the grammatical meaning
of animateness/inanimateness influences the realization of the
grammatical category of case, teminativeness/non-terminativeness —
the category of tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the category
of voice.

GRAMMATICAL
MEANING

EXPLICIT
IMPLICIT

GENERAL
DEPENDENT

1. Grammatical
   categories.

Grammatical categories are
made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the
same form (e.g. singular::plural). Due to dialectal unity of language
and thought, grammatical categories correlate, on the one hand, with
the conceptual categories and, on the other hand, with the objective
reality. It may be shown with the help of a triangle model:

Conceptual
reality Conceptual category

Objective
reality Lingual reality Objective category Grammatical
category

It
follows that we may define grammatical categories as references of
the corresponding objective categories. For example, the objective
category of time
finds its representation in the grammatical category of tense,
the objective category of quantity finds
its representation in the grammatical category of number.
Those grammatical categories that have references in the objective
reality are called referential
grammatical categories. However, not
all of the grammatical categories have references in the objective
reality, just a few of them do not correspond to anything in the
objective reality. Such categories correlate only with conceptual
matters:

Conceptual
correlate

Lingual
correlate

They
are called significational categories.
To this type belong the categories of mood
and degree.
Speaking about the grammatical category of mood we can say that it
has modality
as its conceptual correlate. It can be explained by the fact that it
does not refer to anything in the objective reality – it expresses
the speaker’s attitude to what he says.

1. The
   notion of opposition.

Any
grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical
forms (e.g. the grammatical category of number – singular and
plural forms). The relation between two grammatical forms differing
in meaning and external signs is called opposition
– book::books
(unmarked member/marked member). All grammatical categories find
their realization through oppositions, e.g. the grammatical category
of number is realized through the opposition singular::plural.

Taking
all the above mentioned into consideration, we may define the
grammatical category as the opposition between two mutually exclusive
form-classes (a form-class is a set of words with the same explicit
grammatical meaning).

Means
of realization of grammatical
categories may be synthetic (near –
nearer) and analytic (beautiful
– more beautiful).

1. Transposition
   and neutralization of morphological forms.

In the process of
communication grammatical categories may undergo the processes of
transposition and neutralization.

Transposition
is the use of a linguistic unit in an
unusual environment or in the function that is not characteristic of
it (He is a lion).
In the sentence He is coming tomorrow
the paradigmatic meaning of the
continuous form is reduced and a new meaning appears – that of a
future action. Transposition always results in the neutralization of
a paradigmatic meaning. Neutralization
is the reduction of the opposition to one of its members : custom ::
customs – x :: customs; x :: spectacles.

LECTURE 4: THE PARTS OF
SPEECH PROBLEM. WORD CLASSES

The parts of speech are
classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain
characteristics in common which distinguish them from 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

The
classical
parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on
Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of
speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable
and indeclinable
parts of speech. This system was
reproduced in the earliest English grammars. The first of these
groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and
participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. The
logical-inflectional classification is quite successful for Latin or
other languages with developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but
it cannot be applied to the English language because the principle of
declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical
languages.

A
new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by
Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English
language. This approach may be defined as functional.
He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out
nominative units and particles. To nominative
parts of speech belonged noun-words
(noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund),
adjective-words
(adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb
(finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while
adverb, preposition,
conjunction
and interjection
belonged to the group of particles.
However, though the criterion for classification was functional,
Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into
those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in
other words, declinable and indeclinable.

A
distributional approach
to the parts to the parts of speech
classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by
Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and
establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis,
that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of
different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was
not taken into account. According to Charles Fries, the words in
such sentences as 1. Woggles ugged diggles; 2. Uggs woggled diggs;
and 3. Woggs diggled uggles are quite evident structural signals,
their position and combinability are enough to classify them into
three word-classes. In this way, he introduced four major classes
of words and 15 form-classes.
Let us see how it worked. Three test frames
formed the basis for his analysis:

Frame
A — The concert was good (always);

Frame
B — The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly);

Frame
C – The team went there.

It
turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same
as traditional nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really
valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his investigation of
15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first
linguist to pay attention to some of their peculiarities.

All
the classifications mentioned above appear to be one-sided because
parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of only one aspect of
the word: either its meaning or its form, or its function.

In
modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to
three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. This approach may be
defined as complex.
The semantic
criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of
words (general grammatical meaning). The formal
criterion reveals paradigmatic
properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words,
their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional
criterion concerns the syntactic
function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when
characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its
semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic
peculiarities.

The
linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study makes it
possible to divide all the words of the language into:

1. those
   denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with
   the corresponding references in the objective reality – notional
   words;

2. those
   having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of
   them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame
   utterances – function words,
   or grammatical words.

It is
commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns,
pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts
of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and
modal words.

The
division of language units into notion and function words reveals the
interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning. In
notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words
the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in
actual speech the border line between notional and function words is
not always clear cut. Some notional words develop the meanings
peculiar to function words — e.g. seminotional words – to
turn, to get, etc.

Notional
words constitute the bulk of the existing word stock while function
words constitute a smaller group of words. Although the number of
function words is limited (there are only about 50 of them in Modern
English), they are the most frequently used units.

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 the
Ukrainian or Russian languages. Meanwhile, native speakers use these
words subconsciously, without realizing how they work.

LECTURE
5: THE NOUN

1.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 grammatical catrgories) 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 un 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.

2.
The category of number

The grammatical category of
number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of
quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of
two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form. The category
of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the
dependent implicit grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only
within subclass of countable nouns.

The
grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional
quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one
object while the plural form may be used to denote one object
consisting of several parts. The singular form may denote:

1. oneness
   (individual separate object – a cat);

2. generalization
   (the meaning of the whole class – The
   cat is a domestic animal);

3. indiscreteness
   (нерасчлененность or
   uncountableness — money, milk).

The plural
form may denote:

1. the
   existence of several objects (cats);

2. the
   inner discreteness (внутренняя
   расчлененность, pluralia
   tantum, jeans).

To sum it
up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:

1. The
   nouns in which the opposition of explicit
   discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed : cat::cats;

2. The
   nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is
   revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context.
   There are two groups here:

1. Singularia
   tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract
   nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;

2. Pluralia
   tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts
   (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games,
   etc.

1. The
   nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is
   not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and
   syntactically in the context: e.g. Look!
   A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.

3. The
category of case.

Case
expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or
sentence (my sister’s coat). The category of case correlates with
the objective category of possession. The case category in English is
realized through the opposition: The Common Case :: The Possessive
Case (sister :: sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term
“genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive case”
because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those
of possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is
the following :

1. Possessive
   Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a father,

2. Subjective
   Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,

3. Objective
   Genitive : The man’s release – The man was released,

4. Adverbial
   Genitive : Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,

5. Equation
   Genitive : a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,

6. Genitive
   of destination: children’s books – books for children,

7. Mixed
   Group: yesterday’s paper

Nick’s
school cannot be reduced to one nucleus

John’s
word

To avoid
confusion with the plural, the marker of the genitive case is
represented in written form with an apostrophe. This fact makes
possible disengagement of –`s form from the noun to which it
properly belongs. E.g.: The
man I saw yesterday’s son,
where -`s is appended to the whole group (the so-called group
genitive). It may
even follow a word which normally does not possess such a formant, as
in somebody else’s
book.

There is no
universal point of view as to the case system in English. Different
scholars stick to a different number of cases.

1. There
   are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;

2. There
   are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same
   relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the
   doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;

3. There
   are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to
   the existence of objective pronouns me,
   him, whom;

4. Case
   Grammar. Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of
   cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of the
   sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to different relations
   to nouns. There are 6 cases:

1. Agentive
   Case (A) John
   opened the door;

2. Instrumental
   case (I) The key
   opened the door;
   John used the key to open the door;

3. Dative
   Case (D) John
   believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected
   by the state of action identified by the verb);

4. Factitive
   Case (F) The key
   was damaged ( the result of the action or state identified by the
   verb);

5. Locative
   Case (L) Chicago is
   windy;

6. Objective
   case (O) John stole
   the book.

4. The
Problem of Gender in English

Gender
plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison
with its role in many other languages. There is no gender concord,
and the reference of the pronouns he,
she, it is very
largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as ‘natural’
gender for English, it depends upon the classification of persons and
objects as male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of gender
as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular
semantic association.

According
to some language analysts (B.Ilyish, F.Palmer, and E.Morokhovskaya),
nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.Ilyish
states that not a single word in Modern English shows any
peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female
being. Thus, the words husband
and wife
do not show any
difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical
meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor
and actress
is a purely lexical one. In other words, the category of sex should
not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an objective
biological category.
It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings
are manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger
– tigress).
Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of
the category of gender. Prof.Blokh states that the existence of the
category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation
of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he,
she, it).
Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter
(non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.

LECTURE
6: THE VERB.
1.General characteristics

Grammatically
the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all it performs
the central role in realizing predication —
connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is
why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance.
Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories.
Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions
based on different principles of classification can befound.

Semantic
features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of
verbiality — the
ability to denote a process developing in time. This meaning is
inherent not only in the verbs denoting processes, but also in those
denoting states, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.

Morphological
features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical
categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and
phase. The common categories for finite and non-finite forms are
voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the
English verb find their expression in synthetical and analytical
forms. The formative elements expressing these categories are
grammatical affixes, inner inflexion and
function words.
Some categories have only synthetical forms (person,
number), others
— only analytical (voice).
There are also categories expressed by both synthetical and
analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect).

Syntactic features. The
most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be
modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the
ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the
predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only
finite forms can perform this function while non-finite forms can be
used in any function but predicate. And finally, any verb in the form
of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.

2.
Classifications of English verbs

According to different
principles of classification, classifications can be morphological,
lexical-morphological, syntactical and functional.

A.
Morphological classifications..

I.
According to their stem-types all verbs fall into: simple (to
go), sound-replacive
(food —
to feed, blood —
to bleed), stress-replacive
(import
— to im port,
transport —
to transport, expanded
(with the help of suffixes and prefixes): cultivate,
justify, overcome, composite
(correspond to composite nouns): to
blackmail), phrasal:
to have a smoke, to give a smile
(they always have an ordinary verb as
an equivalent). 2.According
to the way of forming past tenses and Participle
II verbs can be regular
and irregular.

B.
Lexical-morphological classification is
based on the implicit grammatical meanings of the verb. According to
the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity verbs
fall into transitive
and intransitive.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of
stativeness/non-stativeness verbs fall into stative
and dynamic.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of
terminativeness/non-terminativeness verbs fall into terminative
and durative.
This classification is closely connected with the categories of
Aspect and Phase.

C.
Syntactic
classifications. According to the nature of predication (primary and
secondary) all verbs fall into finite
and non-finite.
According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be of
obligatory
and optional valency,
and thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any
directionality. In this way, verbs fall into the verbs of directed
(to see, to take, etc.)
and non-directed
action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.):

Syntagmatic
classification of English verbs

(according
to prof.G.Pocheptsov)

V
Vobj. She shook her head

Vaddr. He phoned me

V2
– V10 Vobj.-addr. She gave me

her pen

V11
– V15 Vadv. She behaved well

V1
V2 – V24 V16 – V24 Vobj.-adv. He put his hat

on the table

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A grammatical category is a class of units (such as noun and verb) or features (such as number and case) that share a common set of characteristics.

They are the building blocks of language, allowing us to communicate with one another. There are no hard and fast rules for what defines these shared traits, however, making it difficult for linguists to agree on precisely what is and is not a grammatical category.

As the linguist and author R.L. Trask put it, the term category in linguistics

«is so varied that no general definition is possible; in practice, a category is simply any class of related grammatical objects which someone wants to consider.»

That said, there are some strategies you can use to group words into categories based on how they function in the English language. (Think of parts of speech.)

Identifying Grammar Groups

One of the simplest ways to create grammatical categories is by grouping words together based on their class. Classes are word sets that display the same formal properties, such as inflection or verb tense.

Put another way, grammatical categories can be defined as sets of words with similar meanings (called semantics.)

There are two families of classes:

• lexical
• functional

The lexical class includes:

• nouns
• verbs
• adjectives
• adverbs

The functional class includes:

• determiners
• particles
• prepositions
• modals
• qualifiers
• question words
• conjunctions
• other words denoting position or spatial relationships

Using this definition, you can create grammatical categories like this: 

• Verbs denote actions (go, destroy, buy, eat, etc.)
• Nouns denote entities (car, cat, hill, John, etc.)
• Adjectives denote states (ill, happy, rich, etc.)
• Adverbs denote manner (badly, slowly, painfully, cynically, etc.)
• Prepositions denote location (under, over, outside, in, on, etc.)

Grammar groups can be further divided, depending on a word’s defining properties. Nouns, for instance, can be further subdivided into number, gender, case, and countability. Verbs can be subdivided by tense, aspect, or voice.

A word can be classified into more than one grammatical category. For instance, a word can be both plural and feminine.

Grammar Tips

Unless you are a linguist, you probably won’t spend much time thinking about how words can be classified based on how they function in the English language. But just about anyone can identify basic parts of speech.

Be careful, though. Some words have multiple functions, such as «watch,» which can function as both a verb («Watch out over there!») and a noun («My watch is broken.»)

Other words, such as gerunds, may appear to be one part of speech (a verb) and yet function differently (as a noun.) («Buying a house is difficult in this economy.») In these cases, you’ll need to pay close attention to the context in which such words are used in writing or speech.

Sources

• Brinton, Laurel J. The Structure of Modern English: A Linguistic Introduction. John Benjamins, 2000, Philadelphia.
• Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 4th ed. Blackwell, 1997, Malden, Mass.
• Payne, Thomas E. Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge University Press, 1997, Cambridge, U.K.
• Radford, Andrew. Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the Structure of English. Cambridge University Press, 2004, Cambridge, U.K.
• Trask, R.L. Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed., ed. by Peter Stockwell. Routledge, 2007, London.

The term «grammatical category» refers to specific properties of a word that can cause that word and/or a related word to change in form for grammatical reasons (ensuring agreement between words).

English has over twenty grammatical categories. Below we list the most common ones for English learners and summarise their main features.

Number

Number is a property of nouns and pronouns, and indicates quantity. Number has two values:

• singular: indicates one only
• plural: indicates two or more

word type	number
singular	plural
noun	boy	boys
pronoun	I	we

Case

Case is a property of pronouns and nouns, and expresses their relationship to the rest of the sentence. Case has three values (two of which do not apply to nouns):

• subjective (pronouns only): when the word is the subject
• objective (pronouns only): when the word is the object
• possessive (pronouns and nouns): when the word indicates possession (ownership)

Gender

Natural gender is a property of pronouns, and differentiates the sexes. Natural gender has three values:

• masculine: indicates male
• feminine: indicates female
• neuter: indicates everything else

Note that Old English had «grammatical gender» where words themselves had gender. Remnants of this are found in «natural gender», which is based on the sex of people rather than the gender of words.

Person

Person is a property of pronouns, and differentiates participants in a conversation. Person has three values:

• first person: refers to the speaker
• second person: refers to the hearer
• third person: refers to all other people or things

Tense

Tense is a property of verbs, and most closely corresponds with location in time. Tense has two values:

• past: indicates before now
• present: indicates now (and sometimes before and after now)

word type	tense
past	present
verb	was did had worked ran	am do have work run

Note that «future tense» is not shown here because strictly-speaking it is not a tense but a structure to talk about the future (after now).

Aspect

Aspect is a property of verbs, and expresses our view of the time structure of an activity or state. Aspect has three values:

• simple: the time has no structure
• continuous: expresses ongoing action
• perfect: expresses completed action

Mood

Mood is a property of verbs, and relates to the speaker’s feelings about the reality of what he is saying. Mood has three values:

• indicative: expresses simple statement of fact
• imperative: expresses command
• subjunctive: expresses something desired or imagined

Voice

Voice is a property of transitive verbs*, and expresses the relationship of the subject to the action. Voice has two values:

• active: the subject does the action
• passive: the subject receives the action

*A transitive verb can take a direct object. (An intransitive verb does not take a direct object.)

Degree

Degree is a property of gradable adjectives and adverbs, and indicates amount. Degree has three values:

• positive: indicates a basic quality
• comparative: indicates a greater quality
• superlative: indicates the maximum quality

Contributor: Josef Essberger

Every word in a sentence plays a different role, refer as the parts of speech. There are the following word classes in english grammar. Word Classes are very important part in grammar. They decide different rules of grammar. More precisely every grammar rule comes out of them. They are the most basic part of a sentences. Without word classes English language would never be possible and that why these 9 words classes are the base of English language.

9 Words Classes in English Grammar

There are following word classes in English grammar.

1. Nouns

A noun is the name of a person, place, concept, or object, like Marry, John, Canada, Japan, truth, honesty, table and, knife Etc. Nouns occupy the major part of English compositions and come in a wide variety of types. They are used as the subject, direct object, indirect objects, plurals, possessive nouns, opposites and adjectives. Mostly nouns are divided into two categories: common nouns and proper nouns.

Examples:

• Cat was under the table.
• Sarah comes out of no where.
• This purse does not belongs to my father.
• Mosque was very beautiful.

List of Some Nouns: 

Banana	Quill	Hospital
Car	School	Juice
Dinner	Tent	Lizard
Engine	Vulture	Morning
France	Girl	Oxygen
Ambulance	Pillow	Hair
Belgium	Restaurant	Insurance
Church	Spoon	Knife
Dress	Train	Magazine
Finland	Xylophone	Nest
Airport	Piano	Guitar
Bed	Refrigerator	Insect
China	Soccer	Kite

i. Common Noun Vs. Proper Noun

Common nouns

They refer the general things, like books and football.

Proper nouns

They deal with the specific names, like David and London.

ii. Countable Nouns Vs. Uncountable Nouns

Countable Nouns

Nouns which we can count like cats, books, pens Etc.

Uncountable Nouns

Nouns that we cannot count like liquid, air, intelligence.

2. Pronouns

Pronouns are the words that substitute for nouns. For example, he, she, it, her, his you, many, who, everybody Etc. Pronouns are divided into a range of categories. personal pronoun, possessive pronoun, relative pronoun, reflexive pronoun, indefinite pronoun, demonstrative pronoun, an interrogative pronoun, intensive pronoun and reciprocal pronoun.

Examples:

• Tom was going to Mosque, and I just followed him.
• Tina is the friend of Sara, and I am their class fellow.
• He is the man of a lot of sugar in his juice.

Some Pronouns are: 

he	her	hers
him	his	I
it	its	our
she	theirs	them
they	us	we
you	your

3. Adjectives

Adjectives describe the qualities or states of nouns. Adjectives are fast, funny, engaging, well-written. There are three degrees of adjectives positive, comparative and superlative adjectives black. They also describe the quality of nouns, many, few, millions Etc.

Examples

• Tom is a brave boy and that’s why he is in at Army.
• My brother is a good looking actor in Germany.
• Shimla is a coward lady of our society.

Here are some common adjectives:

dull	drab	doubtful
dizzy	disturbed	distinct
disgusted	difficult	different
determined	depressed	delightful
defiant	defeated	dead
dark	dangerous	cute
curious	cruel	crowded
creepy	crazy	courageous
cooperative	confused	condemned
concerned	comfortable	combative
colorful	clumsy	cloudy
clever	clear	clean
cheerful	charming	cautious
careful	calm	busy
bright	breakable	brave
brainy	bored	blushing
blue-eyed	blue	bloody
black	bewildered	better
beautiful	bad	awful
average	attractive	ashamed
arrogant	anxious	annoying
annoyed	angry	amused
alive	alert	agreeable
aggressive	adventurous	adorable

4. Verbs

Verbs describe specific actions, like running, winning, and amazing. There are six types of verbs.

Examples:

• Tina was playing cricket.
• Roma is eating bread with butter.

i. Action verbs

They describe action words a person or thing can do such as accept, ask, bake Etc.

Below are some common action verbs:

Zip	Yank	Write	Win
Whistle	Walk	Turn	Touch
Teach	Study	Solve	Sneeze
Sleep	Skip	Sing	Shout
Shop	See	Scream	Run
Replace	Read	Play	Plan
Paint	Listen	Lie	Laugh
Jump	Invent	Imitate	Exit
Enter	Edit	Eat	Drink
Draw	Describe	Dance	Cry
Create	Cough	Complete	Color
Coach	Buy	Build	Break
Arrange	Approve	Answer	Act

ii. Transitive Verbs

If action verbs follow the direct object is called transitive verbs. Like drive, want, write, eat, clean Etc.

iii. Intransitive verb

The action verbs do not have a direct object like landed, arrived.

iv. Linking verb

The various forms of to be are the linking verbs like am, is, are, where Etc.

v. Helping Verb

Helping verbs are used with main verbs. Auxiliary and model verbs are helping verbs like am, are, do, does, shall will Etc.

vi. Static Verb

The static verb is used to express a state rather than an action. Like believe, guess, know, remember Etc.

5. Adverbs

An adverb describes an adjective, a verb, or another adverb. For example, quickly, slowly, happily Etc. There are five different kinds of adverbs.

Examples:

• Tina was cutting the bread carefully.
• Sara was acting nervously in front of her parents.

i. Adverb of Manner

Adverbs that are use to tell manner: Nicely, beautifully, etc. Adverbs can be negative or positive. Below are some adverbs.

Positive	Negative	+Ve/-Ve
Carefully	Nervously	Badly
Justly	Angrily	Hastily
Politely	Cruelly	Angrily
Boldly	Hungrily	Awkwardly
Powerfully	Hastily	Anxiously
Kindly	Anxiously	Blindly
Calmly	Rudely	Loudly
Openly	Blindly	Hungrily
Quickly	Sadly	Noisily
Bravely	Roughly	Lazily
Promptly	Painfully	Frantically
Neatly	Greedily	Carelessly
Perfectly	Carelessly	Inadequately
Easily	Selfishly	Madly

ii. Adverb of Time

Adverb of time is related to time. Examples of adverbs of time are: Today, Yesterday, etc.

iii. Adverb of Place

Adverb of place is related to place. Examples of adverbs of place are: Here, There, Nowhere, etc.

iv. Adverb of Degree

Adverb of degree is related to degree of something or some action. Examples of adverbs of degree are: So, Very, almost, etc.

v. Adverb of Frequency

Adverb of frequency is related to how may time an action has been repeated. Examples of adverbs of frequency are: Always, Never, etc.

6. Prepositions

Prepositions explain the relationship between the words in a sentence. It indicates direction, time, location and space Etc. Examples are above, behind, in, off, Etc.

Examples:

• Cat was over the roof.
• Tina is in the opposite side of the mosque.

Some Prepositions are:

over	outside	opposite	onto
on	off	of	near
minus	like	into	inside
in	from	for	following
excluding	excepting	except	during
down	despite	considering	concerning
by	but	beyond	between
besides	beside	beneath	below
behind	before	at	as
around	anti	among	amid
along	against	after	across
above	about	aboard

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions make it possible to build complex sentences that express multiple ideas like coordinating conjunction, subordinating conjunction and correlative conjunction.

Examples:

• I will dance rather than playing cricket.
• Because Tina is my girlfriend, she will not talk to you anymore.

Here are some most used conjunction:

Provided	Rather than	Even though
In order that	Now when	As if
Even	If then	for
Although	Because	and

8. Interjections

A word that express feelings and emotions in called as interjection. Interjection is somehow very important in grammar. It is very important parts of speech in English grammar. Some common interjection words are oh!, Ah! Yum!, Phooey!, Boo!, etc.

Examples:

• Yeah! I have seen a small cat.
• Oh God! He is under the table.
• Hurrah! We played well and won the game.

9. Articles

There are two categories of articles: definite and indefinite articles. A, an is the indefinite article, and the is the definite article. Articles play an important role in English grammar. They adds to the beauty of English grammar. It is very important to learn these three articles and how to use them. They have some simple rules that we have to follow to use them clearly and correctly.

Examples:

• The Pakistan is our beloved country.
• A cat was going into his room.
• An apple just falls off the table.

10. Determiner

A word placed before a noun provides information about quantity, ownership and specificity. It covers articles, demonstratives possessives and quantifiers, such as a, an, the, this, that, my, his, some, six, Etc.

Examples:

• This chair is made of wood.
• That was the ball, Raina was suppose to use in his home.

In a nutshell, we have discussed commonly used classes and examples of parts of speech.

About Author

Simi

Meet Simeron Khan, an experienced ESL teacher with a passion for guiding students towards fluency in English. With a knack for making even the most complex grammar rules accessible and enjoyable, Simeron has helped countless learners achieve their language goals.