Parts of Speech
Parts of speech may be classified into three groups:
 The form classes:- nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
 The positional classes:- nominal, verbal, adjectival and adverbial.
 The structure classes:- prepositions, qualifiers, auxiliaries, determiners &
pronouns
Form Classes
In form classes, the members are determined by the form of a word.
Form classes are large and open and they readily admit new members.
Nouns:Nouns are identified as nouns by two aspects of form.
 Inflectional morphemes
 And their derivational morphemes.
The inflectional morphemes of the noun are
 Noun plural{-s pl)
 Noun possessive{-s ps}
Any word that has the plural {-s pl} is a noun and any word that has a
possessive {-s ps} is a noun.
Ex: plans ( noun plural) ,mother’s (noun possessive)
Nouns are also identified by noun forming derivational suffixes added to
verbs, adjectives ,adverbs and noun forms.
Ex:- In the word purity, ‘-ity’ is added to an adjective(pure) to form a noun.
Other noun forming suffixes are: -ance,-ment,-al,-ant,-age,-tion,-ity,-ness,-dom,-hood,ship, etc
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Verbs:
Verbs have five different inflectional forms.
 Stem – ex:-(rise)
 Present third person singular- ex:-(rises)
 Present participate- ex:-(rising)
 Past participle- ex:-(risen)
 Past tense – ex:-(rose)
Any word that has three or more of these forms is said to belong to the form class called
the verb.
Ex: ‘cut’ has the minimum of the three forms cut, cuts, cutting
The derivational suffixes by which a verb is identified are few.
Ex:- beauty (source noun) – beautify (derived verb) -‘ify’ is the verb forming suffix.
Other verb forming suffixes are: -e,-ify,-ize,-en etc.
Adjective:
A word that is inflected with -er and -est and that is capable of forming adverbs
with -ly and nouns with -ness is called an adjective.
Ex:- sweet- sweeter, sweetest, sweetly, sweetness.
With most of these words the degrees of comparison are expressed by more and
most. In addition we can usually identify adjectives by derivational suffixes also.
Ex:- child (source noun)-childish (derived adjective) –‘ish’ is the suffix.
Other adjective forming suffixes are: -al,-mic,-ical,-ate,-fic,-en,-ory etc.
Adverb:
The adverb has four suffixes to set it apart from other form classes- the
derivational suffixes –ly,-wise,-ward and –s and the free form –like.
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Ex:- fortunate (source adjective)- fortunately (derived adverb) –ly is the
derivational suffix.
Ex:-student like, earthward
Structure classes
Members of the structure class are recognized mainly by position, as they rarely
change form. They are small in number, and they are stable and closed classes.
Qualifiers:
A qualifier occurs in the position just before an adjectival or an adverbial.
Ex:-The dinner was very good. In which very is the qualifier.
 The function of the qualifier is to modify and the word modified is called
the head.
 The qualifier’s position can accept any form class -nouns, verb, adjective
and adverb.
Ex:- The table was only inches wide. (noun)
The water is boiling hot. (verb)
My dress seems lighter blue than yours. (adjective)
You did fairly well. (adverb)
Prepositions:
Prepositions are words that are usually followed by a noun, noun phrase, and
personal pronoun, or noun substitute.
Ex:- George sat between the two deans.
English has a small group of prepositions-at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to and with.
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Others include two syllable words- about, above, before, behind, below,
beneath, between, beyond, despite, except, inside, into, onto, outside, over, under and
upon.
Determiners
A determiner is a word that patterns with a noun. It precedes the noun and
serves as a signal that a noun is soon to follow.
Ex:- The gymnasium
 If the noun is preceded by adjective and nouns, the determiner precedes
these modifiers.
Ex:- The new gymnasium
 The absence of a determiner to signal a following noun will sometimes
produce ambiguity.
 Some of the determiners are:
Articles ( a,an,the)
Pronominal possessive pronouns ( my,your,his,her,its,our,their)
Demonstratives ( this,that,these,those)
Possessive proper names Ex:- John’s
Auxiliaries
Auxiliaries are closely associated with the verb and are of three kinds. The first kind is
called modal auxiliaries. There are ten modal auxiliaries:
can, could; may, might; shall, should; will, would; must, ought to.
 The modal auxiliaries are bound together as a group by two characteristics of
form:
(a) The present-tense form does not take an -s in the third person singular; for example,
we say “She may,” not “She mays.”
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(b) They do not have participle forms, present or past.
 These modal auxiliaries precede verb stems and give them special shades of
meaning, such as futurity, volition, possibility, probability, permission,
and necessity.
The majority of the modals are said to have tense. In the first four pairs–can, could;
may, might; shall, should; will, would–the second member is the past tense of the first
member.
I think I can help you.
I thought I could help you.
Must and ought (to) do not have parallel forms, like the others.
The negatives of must and ought to are not regular. If must means “is necessary,” then
its negative means “is not necessary”. This negative meaning is expressed by do not
have to or need not, and not by must not, which is a forbiddance of the action of the
following verb. Thus;
Affirm.: You must return tomorrow.
Neg.: You don’t have to return tomorrow.
The second kind of auxiliary is the two primary auxiliaries, have and be. Their forms are;
Stem: have, be
Present tense: has/have, am/is/are
Present participle: having, being
Past tense: had, was/were
Past participle: had, been
 When immediately preceding a main verb, have is followed by a past participle,
as in “He has eaten,” and be is followed by either a past participle, as in “The
white cat was found,” or a present participle, as in “They are studying.”
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 When we form questions, we locate the first auxiliary in the string of words that
would occur together if the utterance were a statement. We also move it to the
front of the utterance, placing it in front of the subject.
Example:
“Jim is teaching history” becomes “Is Jim teaching history?”
 Tag questions, which are short questions tacked onto statements, locate the first
auxiliary of an utterance and repeat it in the subsequent tag.
Example:
Jim is teaching history, isn’t he?
The third kind of auxiliary is the periphrastic auxiliary do.
 In the discussion above regarding the formation of questions, tag questions, and
negative statements, we learnt that speakers have to locate the first auxiliary.
Many statements do not even contain an auxiliary (or even a non auxiliary form of be).
In such cases we insert an appropriate form of the periphrastic do,
which also carries the verb tense.
Example:
Sally studies chemistry” becomes “Does Sally study chemistry?”
“Sally studied chemistry” becomes “Did Sally study chemistry?”
Pronouns
Pronouns are substitutes for noun phrases
There are three types of Pronouns: Personal, Interrogative and Relative
Personal Pronouns:
A personal pronoun is the most basic type used to substitute for a noun phrase. The
forms of personal pronouns are determined by three different characteristics: person
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(1st, 2nd, or3rd), number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, or
neuter).
SINGULAR
Subject
Object
Pronominal Substitutional
Possessive possessive
1st
I
me
my
mine
2nd
you
you
your
yours
M
he
him
his
his
F
She
her
her
hers
N
it
it
its
its
3rd
PLURAL
Subject
Object
Pronominal Substitutional
Possessive possessive
1st
we
us
our
ours
2nd
you
you
your
yours
3rd
they
them
their
theirs
whom
whose
whose
Interrogative who
Relative
The functions of the personal pronouns are:
 The pronouns in the subject column are used in the functions of subjects of verb.
Ex:- They are going to the ballet
 The pronouns in the object column are used in the functions of objects of verb
and of prepositions
Ex:- We saw her in the car
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 The pronominal possessive occurs before the noun
Ex:- With my brain and your industry we could make fortune.
 The substitutional possessive occur as substitutes for nouns.
Ex:- Yours was the best.
Relative Pronouns
These are called relative pronouns because they relate a dependent clause to an
independent clause.
who, whom, whose, which, and that are the relative pronouns.
 Who and whom refers to human beings, and whose has both human and non
human reference.
 Which has non human reference.
 That has both human and non human reference.
Interrogative Pronouns
We use interrogative pronouns to ask questions. They are the first word in a question.
The interrogative pronoun represents the thing that we don’t know (what we are asking
the question about).
There are four main interrogative pronouns are who, whom, what, and which.
Ex:-Who borrowed my book?
Whose book is this?
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