1.
NOUN
A noun is the name of
a person, place, thing, or idea.
A noun
is a word for a person, place, thing, or idea. Nouns are often used with
an article (the, a, an), but not always. Proper nouns always start with a
capital letter; common nouns do not.
Nouns have these
characteristics:
• They
are abstract or concrete.
Nouns like enthusiasm,
willingness and angst are abstract nouns. Abstract nouns name things we cannot
see, touch, or detect readily through our senses. Abstract nouns name ideas
(existentialism, democracy), measurements (weight, percent), emotions (love,
angst), or qualities (responsibility). Concrete nouns, on the other hand, name
persons, including animals (cousins, Roger Rabbit), places (beach, Chico), or
things we can see, touch, or otherwise detect through our senses (smoke, beer).
• They
are proper or common.
A proper noun identifies
a particular person, animal, place, thing, or idea--Roger Rabbit, for example.
The first letter of each word of a proper noun is capitalized. A common noun
does not name a particular person or thing; rather, it refers to a whole class
or type. Common nouns do not require capitalization.
• Most
are singular or plural
Most nouns are made
plural with the addition of s or es. Thus, instructor becomes instructors, and
class becomes classes. Some nouns have irregular plural forms: man becomes men,
and woman becomes women. Child becomes children, and person becomes people. Some
nouns have the same form in both singular and plural: "A moose is crossing
the river. No, wait--three moose are crossing the river!"
• Some
are collective.
A collective noun names a
collection or group of things. Although a collective noun refers to a group of
many things, it is usually singular in form.
Nouns show possession by
adding 's. Nouns can function in different roles within a sentence; for
example, a noun can be a subject, direct object, indirect object, subject
complement, or object of a preposition.
2.
VERB
A verb expresses action or
being.
The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a
verb. You can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!"
You cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.
Verbs are sometimes described as "action words".
This is partly true. Many verbs give the idea of action, of "doing"
something. For example, words like run, fight, do and work all
convey action.
But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the
idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be,
exist, seem and belong all convey state.
A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John
speaks English", John is the subject and speaks is the
verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us
what a subject does or is; they describe:
•
action (Ram plays football.)
•
state (Anthony seems kind.)
There is something very special about verbs in English. Most
other words (adjectives, adverbs, prepositions etc) do not change in form
(although nouns can have singular and plural forms). But almost all verbs
change in form. For example, the verb to work has five forms:
•
to work, work, works, worked, working
Of course, this is still very few forms compared to some
languages which may have thirty or more forms for a single verb.
3.
ADJECTIVE
An adjective modifies
or describes a noun or pronoun.
An adjective
is a word that tells us more about a noun. It "describes" or
"modifies" a noun (The big dog was hungry).
In these examples, the adjective is in bold and the noun that it
modifies is in italics.
An
adjective often comes BEFORE a noun:
• a
green car
• a
dark sky
• an
interesting story
And
sometimes an adjective comes AFTER a verb:
• My
car is green.
• The
sky became dark.
• His
story seemed interesting.
But
adjectives can also modify pronouns (She is beautiful).
Look at these examples:
• They
were empty.
• I
thought it seemed strange.
• Those
are not expensive.
Note that
we can often use two or more adjectives together (a beautiful young
French lady / it is black and white).
Adjective Form
Some adjectives have particular endings, for example:
•
-able/-ible: washable, credible
•
-ish/-like: childish, childlike
•
-ful/-less: careful, careless
•
-ous: dangerous, harmonious
•
-y: dirty, pretty
However, many adjectives have no obvious form.
Comparative, Superlative
Most adjectives can be comparative or superlative, for
example:
•
big, bigger, biggest
•
good, better, best
beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful
4.
ADVERB
An adverb modifies or
describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
|
An adverb is a word that modifies an
action verb, an adjective or another adverb.
•
The teacher carefully graded the
homework.
Carefully is an adverb that
modifies the action verb to grade.
•
Tommy was extremely enthusiastic
about doing his homework.
Extremely is an adverb that
modifies the adjective enthusiastic.
•
Yan Ko ran out of the classroom very quickly.
Very is an adverb that modifies
the adverb quickly.
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5.
PRONOUN
A pronoun is a word used in
place of a noun.
Pronouns replace nouns. Without them,
language would be repetitious, lengthy, and awkward:
President John Kennedy
had severe back trouble, and although President John Kennedy approached stairs
gingerly and lifted with care, President John Kennedy did swim and sail, and
occasionally President John Kennedy even managed to play touch football with
friends, family members, or co-workers.
With pronouns taking the place of some nouns, that sentence
reads more naturally:
President John Kennedy
had severe back trouble, and although he approached stairs gingerly and lifted
with care, he did swim and sail, and occasionally he even managed to play touch
football with friends, family members, or co-workers.
The pronoun he takes the place of the proper noun President
John Kennedy. This makes President John Kennedy the antecedent of the pronoun.
The antecedent is the noun or pronoun that a pronoun replaces. There are six
types of pronouns:
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Personal
|
Reflexive
|
|
Indefinite
|
Relative
|
|
Possessive
|
Demonstrative
|
References