feeling awesome...my first day in the world of blogs..
LESSON TEMPLATE
ASSIGNMENT
PARTS
OF SPEECH
Submitted to: Skaria
Sir
Submitted by:
Jisha Susan Jacob
St.Johns B.Ed Training College
Introduction
In grammar, a part
of speech (also a word class, a lexical class, or a lexical category) is a
linguistic category of words (or more precisely lexical items), which is
generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in
question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb,
among others. There are open word classes, which constantly acquire
new members, andclosed word classes,
which acquire new members infrequently if at all.
Almost all languages have the lexical categories noun and verb,
but beyond these there are significant variations in different languages.[1]For example, Japanese has
as many as three classes of adjectives where English has
one; Chinese, Korean and
Japanese have nominal
classifiers whereas
European languages do not; many languages do not have a distinction between adjectives and adverbs, adjectives and verbs (see stative verbs) or adjectives and nouns[citation needed],
etc. This variation in the number of categories and their identifying
properties entails that analysis be done for each individual language.
Nevertheless the labels for each category are assigned on the basis of
universal criteria.[1]
Parts of Speech
The eight parts of speech are the verb, the
noun, the adjective, the adverb, the pronoun, the conjunction, the preposition
and the interjection.
A VERB is a word that expresses an action or
a state of being – it is part of the predicate of a sentence. Examples: eats, write, feels.
A NOUN is a word (other than a pronoun) that
names a person, place or thing. Examples: James,
Kuala Lumpur, bread.
An ADJECTIVE is a word that modifies the
meaning of a noun. Examples: beautiful,
exciting, smart.
An ADVERB is a word that modifies the
meaning of a verb, an adjective, a gerund, another adverb, or a sentence.
Examples: quickly, briskly, fortunately.
A PRONOUN is a word that represents a noun.
Examples: he, they, her, who.
A CONJUNCTION is a word or phrase that
connects parts of sentences, phrases or clauses. Examples: and, but, because.
A PREPOSITION is a word used before a noun
or pronoun to show its relationship with other words. Examples: in, into, at.
An INTERJECTION is an exclamation – it
expresses strong feeling rather than meaning. Examples: Ouch! / Thank heavens!
Same
word, different parts of speech
The function of a word in a sentence
determines what part of speech it is in that sentence. The same word may be used
as different parts of speech.
I have not eaten ice cream since
my last birthday. (preposition)
Since you are not
feeling well, I will have to go alone to the party. (conjunction)
I read three books every month. (verb)
This book is an interesting read.
(noun)
There is something about him that
makes me uneasy. (preposition)
I saw that movie about three
months ago. (adverb)
It was the only answer I could
think of. (adjective)
She is only six years old. (adverb)
I’ll be back in a while. (noun)
They decided to while away the
afternoon by playing chess. (verb)
While she prepared
the food, he cleaned up the living room. (conjunction)
Heteronyms
Heteronyms are words that have the same
spelling but different meanings because of different pronunciations. Can you
identify the parts of speech of the heteronyms in the story below?
The
Fox and the Stork
A fox met a stork and invited her to dinner.
The stork didn’t have the heart to refuse (1a) the invitation.
That evening, she showed up at the fox’s
place an hour late. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot to wind (2a) my clock
up.” And she gave her vulpine host a small present (3a) to assuage his
anger.
The fox brought out from his kitchen two
wide, shallow dishes containing carrot juice. “May I present (3b) to you
my latest culinary creation,” he announced. “It is full of flavour, with a dash
of sugar and just a suspicion of garlic.”
The fox guzzled the juice, but the stork
could not get a single drop with her long, thin beak. She did not become angry
at her host for being so thoughtless. Instead, she requested him to give her
the recipe for preparing the juice.
“No problem,” said the fox. “Let me tear
(4a) a blank leaf out of my notebook.” And he took a minute (5a) to write
the recipe on the paper, using a pencil with a soft lead (6a).
The good-natured bird did not leave in a
huff when dinner was over. She showed her graciousness by staying back for a
long time to watch a live (7a) football match on a portable black-and-white
television. And she was delighted when her team was in the lead (6b) at
half time.
The next day, the stork invited the fox to
share her afternoon meal. He accepted the invitation and travelled along a path
that wound (8a) through the woods and up the side of a hill to reach his
destination.
The stork served her guest some finely
chopped meat in a glass jar with a long, narrow neck. Her beak easily went into
the jar, but the fox could not reach his food.
“This meat tastes delicious,” the stork
said. “I’ve had this food three days in a row (9a) already. I think I
can live (7b) to a great age if I eat it frequently. Don’t let your
appetite desert (10a) you now, Fox,” she continued, laughing with gusto.
“You should at least try a minute (5b) portion of this tender meat.”
The fox noticed that his hostess had a tear
(4b) or two in her eye, and for a moment he felt sanguine and thought that she
pitied him – until she declared, “Peeling onions can make you cry. I had a
mishap while I was cutting the onions,” she added. “Luckily, it was just a
flesh wound (8b).”
When lunch was over, the stork asked, “How
was the food, Fox?”
Annoyed, the fox said nothing, but he
thought, “No point starting a row (9b) with her. I can hardly fault her
for paying me back in my own coin.”
“I’m really satiated after the huge meal,”
said the stork. “When you leave, Fox, could you please take out the kitchen refuse
(1b)?”
As the fox made his way home, a sudden gust
of wind (2b), like a hot desert (10b) wind, blew against his
face.
(Adapted from a fable by Aesop)
Answers
1.
Refuse (a) verb (b) noun
2.
Wind (a) verb (b) noun
3.
Present (a) noun (b) verb
4.
Tear (a) verb (b) noun
5.
Minute (a) noun (b) adjective
6.
Lead (a) noun (b) noun
7.
Live (a) adjective (b) verb
8.
Wound (a) verb (b) noun
9.
Row (a) noun (b) noun
10.
Desert (a) verb (b) adjective (noun as modifier)
CONCLUSION
Linguists recognize that the above list of eight
word classes is drastically simplified and artificial.[2] For
example, "adverb" is to some extent a catch-all class that includes
words with many different functions. Some have even argued that the most basic
of category distinctions, that of nouns and verbs, is unfounded,[3] or
not applicable to certain languages.[4][5] Although
these eight are the traditional eight English parts of speech, modern linguists
have been able to classify English words into even more specific categories and
subcategories based on function.
The four main parts of speech in English, namely nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs, are labelled form classes as well. This is because
prototypical members of each class share the ability to change their form by
accepting derivational or inflectional morphemes. The term form is used because
it refers literally to the similarities in shape of the word in its
pronunciation and spelling for each part of speech.[6]
Neither written nor spoken English generally marks words as belonging to one part of
speech or another, as they tend to be understood in the context of the
sentence. Words like neigh, break, outlaw, laser, microwave, and telephone might all be either verb forms or
nouns. Although -ly is a frequent adverb marker, not all
adverbs end in -ly (-wise is another common adverb marker) and
not all words ending in -ly are adverbs. For instance, tomorrow, fast, very can all be adverbs, while early, friendly, ugly are all adjectives (though early can also function as an adverb). Verbs
can also be used as adjectives (e.g. "The astonished child watched the spectacle
unfold" instead of the verb usage "The unfolding spectacle astonished the child"). In such cases, the
verb is in its participle form.
References
· Communicate.english.net.in
· Brittaniccaworldwide.com
