Parts of Speech

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Parts of Speech

When we speak, our speech consists of many words; these are called Parts of Speech.
There are 8 basic parts of speech i.e.

Let us explain these parts in simple way and see how they are collected together to form a sentence.

Noun
Noun means any name. (Person, Place or Thing)
Examples: Boy: Person , Karachi: Place , Pencil: Thing

Kinds of Noun:
1- Common Noun:
It is any common name, ordinary name of person, place or thing.
Examples:
Boy, city, girl, fan, book etc

2- Proper Noun:
It is any particular or specific name.
Examples:
Ali, Lahore, Pakistan, March etc

3- Abstract Noun:
It is name of any quality, state or action.
Examples:
Honesty, bravery, poverty, theft etc

4- Material Noun:
Material things out of which other things are made are material noun.
Examples:
Gold, silver, steel, stone, cotton

5- Collective Noun:
It is name of some group or collection.
Examples:
Family, class, army, people etc
Some of these names are used with additional words e.g. pile, bundle, number, set, items, crowd, team etc.

6- Countable Noun:
It is noun that can be counted.
Examples:
Two girls, one book, both etc.

7- Uncountable Noun:
It is noun which can not be counted.
Examples:
a little milk, a few books, much water etc.

Rules for Nouns:
1– First letter of Proper nouns will always be capital.
2– Collective nouns are sometimes used in singular sense.
3– Articles (a, an, the) are not used with material noun and they have no plural form.
4– “The” is not used before Proper noun.
5– “The” is used before Common noun to make it specific or to mention some name used before e.g. The book is on the table. Here “the book” means the same book which is on the table, not any other ordinary book and “the table” means the same table on which book is there not any other ordinary table.

 

Pronoun
Pronoun is used in place of a name. (To avoid from repetition)
Examples:
Ali is a boy. He is very intelligent.
He, she, it, I, we, they, you are pronouns.

Kinds of Pronoun
1- Personal Pronoun:
It is used in place of name with three categories:
1st Person: I, we
2nd Person: You
3rd Person: He, she, it, they
These categories have further three cases table of which is as follows:
Nominative Case:
Case of Subject or action doer.
Possessive Case:
Shows possession or anything owned.
Objective Case:
Case of Object or action receiver.
I My, mine Me
We Our Us
They Their Them
You Your You
He His Him
She Her Her
It Its It
2- Demonstrative Pronoun:
It is used to point out some noun.
Examples:
This is the person who has stolen my pen.
That is a ball.
These, those etc are Demonstrative Pronouns.

3- Distributive Pronoun:
It is used to distribute or separate nouns.
Examples:
either, or, neither, nor, each, every etc.

4- Reflexive Pronoun:
It ends on “self or selves” followed by any case of Personal Pronoun.
Examples:
Myself, themselves, itself, himself etc.

5- Relative Pronoun:
It is used to relate some noun to its pronoun.
Examples:
This is the pen which was stolen.
He is the boy whom I had met before.
Antecedent:
The name going before a Relative pronoun is called Antecedent.
In the above examples, pen and boy are Antecedents.

6- Interrogative Pronoun:
It is question word used in place of noun.
Examples:
What, when, where, who etc.

7- Emphatic Pronoun:
It is used to emphasize or stress some noun. It can be said to be a demonstrative pronoun as well.
Examples:
This is the scene which I like the most.

 

Verb
Verb is any action. (May be in Present, Past or Future)
No sentence is complete without a verb.
Verb itself is a sentence.
Examples:
Come, go, sit, work, enjoy, get, set etc.

Kinds of Verb
1- Principal Verb:
It is main action. You are well familiar with the forms of principal verbs.
Examples:
Walk, run, see, sit, eat, sleep, drink etc.

2- Helping Verb:
It helps the main verb. It is not necessary to be present in every sentence.
Examples:
Is, are, am, was, were, will, shall, can, may, should, would, ought, might, be, been, could etc

3- Transitive Verb:
It follows the object. Its necessary to use object in its sentence.
Examples:
She plucks a flower.
He reads a book.

4- Intransitive Verb:
It ends without object and the meaning of sentence is clear without using object.
Examples:
Baby sleeps, birds chirp etc.

5- Complement:
It completes a sentence and is called “Being Verb”.
Examples:
I am a girl.
You seem happy etc.

Rules for Verbs:

No sentence is complete without a verb.
Verb itself is a sentence.
Difference in forms of verb depends upon tense used.
It is the most important part of a sentence.

 

Adjective
Adjective is any quality of a noun. (May be Positive or Negative)
It adds to the meaning of a noun.
Examples:
He is smart guy.Tall, short, genius, careless, punctual, regular, big, small etc are Adjectives

Kinds of Adjective
1- Adjective of quality:
It adds to the meaning of a noun.
Examples:
Good boy, clean room, big city, sharp pencil etc.

2- Adjective of quantity:
It shows quantity which can not be counted.
Examples:
some, enough, all, a little, much etc.

3- Adjective of number:
It shows number which can be counted.
Examples:
One, two, three—? Cardinal Numbers
1st, 2nd, 3rd——? Ordinal Numbers
Each, every, either—-? Indefinite and Distributive Adjectives

4- Proper Adjective:
It has been derived from Proper Noun.
Examples:
Pakistani, Eastern, English etc

Rules for adjective:

1- Quality may be any merit or demerit also. It doesn’t mean that it is good property only. Purpose is to enhance and stress on meaning of noun.
2- Colors names are also adjectives.
3- It is used before a noun or pronoun.
4- If some adjective is used without any noun or pronoun, then it will be considered as plural e.g. The brave are admired.

 

Preposition
Pre means “before” and position means “state”.
Preposition shows the position of words coming before it (May be noun, pronoun, phrase, verb etc)
These are joining words. (Join different parts of a sentence)
Examples:
The glass is on the table.
In, on, under, behind, beside, at, for, of, with, to etc are Prepositions.

Kinds of Preposition
1- Simple Prepositions:
Examples:
In, on, under, behind, beside, near, at, for, from, of, above etc

2- Double Prepositions:
Examples:
Within, into, onto, upward etc

3- Compound Prepositions
Through, against, in front of etc

4- Prepositions of Place:
Examples:
On, at, above, under, beneath, down, up etc

5- Prepositions of Time:
Examples:
At, about, before, after, within, since (For some fixed time e.g. morning, today, tomorrow, evening etc), for (For some time which is not fixed e.g. number of days, hours, weeks, months, years etc) etc

Rules for Prepositions:

1- It is used after verb whether Principal Verb or Helping Verb.
2- If it is changed, meaning of verb are also changed e.g. come on, come in, come out, come of etc.
3- These are also used with adverbial Phrase.

 

Adverb 
Adverb adds to the meaning of a verb, adjective or another adverb.
(Without adverb, a sentence is complete but adding it, the meaning is enhanced.)
Examples:
We run fast.
Quickly, slowly, sharply, early, heavily etc.
Notice here the difference between Adjective and Adverb. Both add meanings but to different things.

Kinds of Adverb
1- Adverb of Manner:
It ends on “ly” and gives us the answer of “how”.
Examples:
Slowly, quickly, neatly, hardly etc

2- Adverb of Place:
It gives us the answer of “where”.
Examples:
Here, there, in, on, under, behind, beside, near etc

3- Adverb of Time:

It gives us the answer of “when”.
Examples:
Yesterday, tomorrow, now, today, soon, early etc

4- Adverb of Degree:
It adds to the meaning showing some degree or level.
Examples:
He works harder.
Pakistani team runs faster etc.

Rules for Adverb:

1– “Very” is used as degree and positive degree.
2– All kind of Adverb of Place show position, so these all are Prepositions also. However, it is not necessary that all prepositions are also adverb of place.
3– Without an Adverb, a sentence is complete but it qualifies its meaning, if present.
4– There’s another kind of Adverb i.e. Adverbial Phrase
It is at the end of a sentence and there is preposition before it. Some students consider it object but that is adverbial phrase, not object e.g. The sun rises in the east. Its detail is also given in Passive Voice Section.
5– Adverb may be in the start, centre or end of a sentence depending upon emphasis e.g.
He goes to school, daily.
Daily, he goes to school.
He, daily, goes to school.
5- Adverb is written with comma to make it separate from a sentence because it is used as an additional word to stress. If you remove it, the sentence will even then be complete e.g. I get up, early, in the morning.
I get up in the morning.

 

Conjunction
Conjunction is used to join or combine two clauses or sentences. (Clause is not complete sentence. It has a subject and predicate) (Predicate contains the verb and its complement) (Complement is used to complete a grammatical construction)
Examples:
He said that he was fine.
Please inform me when you reach Lahore.
Because, Where, who, what, if, whose, which etc are examples of conjunctions which are used in the centre of a sentence and in fact, to join two sentences.

Kinds of Conjunction
Followings are the kinds of Conjunction:

1- Coordinating Conjunction:
It joins two sentences but if we remove it, the sentence gives complete meaning.
Examples:
And, but, where, if, yet, so etc

2- Subordinating Conjunction:
It also joins two sentences but its one clause gives incomplete meaning without the other clause.
Example:
If, although, unless, until, whenever, after, as etc

3- Correlative Conjunction:
These are used altogether and show relation to each other.
Examples:
Either, or, neither, nor, both, not only, but also etc

Rules for Conjunction:

1– Its meaning is complete and clear until and unless both parts of a sentence are used e.g. You will pass if you work hard.
2– All Question Words if used as Conjunction give Positive meaning e.g. what, when, where, who, whom, whose etc
3– “If’ is called Conditional Word” because there is condition in its sentence involved.
4– Tense of both parts of a sentence can be different depending upon time. Its detail is in section of jumbled Sentences.

 

Interjection
Interjection is used to express emotions or feelings (Joy, Sorrow, Wonder, Fear, Anger etc). It itself is not meaningful but after reading full sentence, we can easily understand for what it has been used. (Interjections are not specific to English only. Many are those which are same in other languages also)
Exclamation mark is used with interjection and after this mark, the word is written with Capital letter
Examples:
Hurrah! I got first position in Science Subjects.
Alas! Our father passed away last night.
Ah, Aha, Yahoo, Wow etc are examples of interjections

 

Interjection
Interjection is used to express emotions or feelings (Joy, Sorrow, Wonder, Fear, Anger etc). It itself is not meaningful but after reading full sentence, we can easily understand for what it has been used. (Interjections are not specific to English only. Many are those which are same in other languages also)
Exclamation mark is used with interjection and after this mark, the word is written with Capital letter

Examples:
Hurrah! I got first position in Science Subjects.
Alas! Our father passed away last night.
Ah, Aha, Yahoo, Wow etc are examples of interjections.

Sentence Structure:
Now we are in a position to understand the structure of a sentence.
A basic sentence has three parts i.e.
Who + What + By Whom (Subject + Verb + Object)
Subject means any noun or pronoun that is performing the action.
Verb is the action and Object is also some noun or pronoun but the one on whom the action is being performed.

Examples:
He plucked a flower.
They play cricket.

Complex Sentence Structure:
Now if we want to use all parts of speech described above in a single sentence, the sentence structure will become a little tough. See the below structure:
Interjection + Subject + Verb + Preposition + Adjective + Object + Adverb + Conjunction + 2nd Sentence.

Example: 
Hurrah! I have qualified for this match very successfully and I am much glad.
Aha! It has started raining in our deserted area heavily and children are enjoying outside.
(Adjective and adverb can be used somewhere else according to the requirement)
(This is an average sentence, many exceptions are still there)
All parts of a sentence can be omitted but verb is necessary to make sense.
So it is clear that how different parts of speech can be used altogether.

 

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