Parts of Speech

Nouns

Common noun: 

All known objects.

Ball, light, iPad, trophy

 

Pronouns:

A word that refers to an object or person.

Personal pronouns: refer to people or things - I, you, she , he

Possessive pronouns: indicate ownership - hers, yours, mine, ours

Reflexive pronouns: reflect back on the noun - self, selves, herself, himself

Interrogative pronouns: interrogate or ask questions - who, whose, to whom, what, which

Demonstrative pronouns: point out a specific person or thing - this, that, these, those

Indefinite pronouns: refer to things in a general way - one, someone, they, you, anyone

Relative pronouns: perform the functions of conjunctions - who, whom, whose, that, which, what

 

Proper nouns: 

Names of anything.

John, Manchester United, MacBook

 

Abstract nouns:

Intangible things that cannot be seen or touched, but can be felt.

Joy, sadness, depression, happy

 

Collective nouns: 

Names of groups of things.

A gaggle of geese. A swarm of bees. A school of fish.


Verbs

General

A verb is a doing word.

Finite

A verb is finite when it contains all of the three things:

  • Subject
    • Is the verb being done by something
  • Tense 
    • Present
    • Past
    • Future
  • Number
    • Singular
    • Plural

She swam yesterday.

 

Non-finite

Verbs which don't have one of the aforementioned attributes.

A call was made for clarification.

 

The Infinitive

Whenever "to" proceeds a verb.

To run. To play. To swim.

 

Auxiliary

A verb used to form the tense, mood and form of other verbs.

Eg: could, can, may, might, shall, etc.

 

Transitive

A transitive verb is a verb that can directly take an object.

He played football. // "played" links the subject and the object.

 

Participle

A participle is a adjective or noun formed from a verb.

Eg: boiling water // Hearing a loud noise // In both of these cases the verb acts against the noun and is therefore an adjective. 

You can get present and past participles. Present always ends in "ing" and past can end in "ed", "en" and a variety of other two letter combinations.

 

The linking verb

Links a noun to a noun or a noun with an adjective. If the word that follows the linking verb is not a noun, it is known as the complement. The verb has to be is, am, or are. 

 

Mood of the verb

Three main moods

  1. Indicative
    1. Used to express a fact or provide information
  2. Imperative
    1. Expresses instructions or commands
  3. Subjunctive
    1. Express when something is unlikely or to express a wish, doubt or uncertainty.

 



Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe a noun.

The bright and fluorescent colour of the ball was distracting.

 

Descriptive or adjectives of quality

These are the most commonly used adjectives - loyal, intelligent, creative, motivated

 

Proper adjectives

Proper nouns used as adjectives - South African people

 

adjectives of quantity or number

How many - several, most, a few

 

adjectives of order

Position - first, second, last

 

demonstrative adjectives

Which object (this differs to demonstrative pronouns as pronouns point to a person and an adjective points to an object) - that book

 

Possessive adjectives

Belonging to (differs to possessive pronouns as it can be directly next to the noun) - my house

 

Interrogative adjectives

Which one - which, what, whose

 


Adverbs

Adverbs are words that describe how a verb is done.

He ran quickly.  They swam effortlessly.

 

Types of adverbs

  • Manner
    • quickly, fast, slowly
  • Place
    • here, there, anywhere
  • Time
    • today, tomorrow, yesterday
  • Frequency
    • always, never, 
  • Degree

 

sentence modifiers

comparative Adverbs

 

 


Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words that join sentences together.

The boy was fast and the girl was clever. The mountain was steep but he didn't care about that.

Coordinating

A conjunction is co-ordinating when it allows both sides of the sentence to have equal importance - this creates a compound sentence. The mainly used coordinating conjunctions can be remembered using a simple anagram: FANBOYS.

  • F
    • For
  • A
    • And
  • N
    • Nor
  • B
    • But
  • O
    • Or
  • Y
    • Yet
  • S
    • So

Subordinating

A subordinating conjunction or pronoun is used for a clause that has less importance than another.

Example: They were all screaming until Lesedi killed the spider.



Prepositions

These are words which relate words or phrases to each other.

Manchester United's trophy lies next to Paul Pogba's bed.

Apple has the money from their lawsuit with Samsung in their bank account. 

Interjection

An exclamation.

Ah! Oh no!