Parts of Speech
 

Asslamoalikum to all CSS Forum members!!! can anyone explain the parts of speech please

There are eight parts of speech in the English language: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The part of speech indicates how the word functions in meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence. An individual word can function as more than one part of speech when used in different circumstances. Understanding parts of speech is essential for determining the correct definition of a word when using the dictionary.

Noun
 

[B]A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.[/B]
man... college... house... happiness

The first real word you ever used probably was a noun-a word like mama, daddy, car, or cookie. Most children begin building their vocabularies with nouns. A noun names something: a person, place, or thing. Most other parts of our language either describe nouns, tell what a noun is doing, or take the place of a noun.

[I]Nouns have these characteristics:[/I]

They are abstract or concrete.
They are proper or common.
Most are singular or plural, but...
Some are collective.

In English, nouns are often preceded by noun markers--the articles/adjectives a, an, the, or some for example; or possessive words like my or your. A noun always follows a noun marker, though adjectives or other words may come between them:

my former roommate
a sunny June day
an objective and very thorough evaluation
some existential angst

Because of their noun markers, you could safely guess that roommate, day, evaluation and angst are nouns (even if you didn't know what angst was). Although not all nouns are preceded by markers, you can use a noun marker test to identify many, including abstract nouns. Consider this example:

Enthusiasm and willingness to work hard are a remedy for the existential angst of many students.

Remedy is marked as a noun by the noun marker a. Angst is preceded by the noun marker the. Students is preceded by the adjective (adjectives modify nouns) many. Test the remaining words: can you have an enthusiasm or some enthusiasm? Certainly: "I have an enthusiasm for snowboarding" or "Show some enthusiasm!" So enthusiasm is a noun. Can you have an and or some and? Uh, no. So and is not a noun. Can you have a willingness or some willingness? Sure, you can have "a willingness to learn"; willingness is also a noun.

[I]Every noun is either abstract or concrete.[/I]
Nouns like enthusiasm, willingness and angst are abstract nouns. [B]Abstract nouns[/B] 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). [B]Concrete nouns[/B], 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).

[I]Every noun is either proper or common.[/I]
A [B]proper noun[/B] 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 [B]common noun[/B] does not name a particular person or thing; rather, it refers to a whole class or type. Common nouns do not require capitalization.

Proper noun (capitalized)
Sierra Nevada Crystal Wheat is his favorite beer (common noun).
The Rooks and the Rangers are our local soccer and baseball teams (common noun).
Bidwell Park is one of the largest municipal parks (common noun).
Lundberg Family Farm is a sustainable, organic farm (common noun).

[I]Most nouns are either singular or plural...[/I]
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.

Many people, both men and women, believe that having children will be a remedy for their existential angst.

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!"

[B] ...but some nouns are collective.[/B]
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. We think of a collective noun as singular because its members act in one accord:

The army is withdrawing from those Asian countries that are in negotiations.

Here, army is a collective noun referring to a group of many people acting with one will. We treat it as a singular noun. Countries is a plural noun. If several countries joined together to form an alliance, we could say this:

The Asian alliance is united in its determination to repel foreign invaders.

In some instances a collective noun describes a group that is not acting with one will, whose members rather are taking independent, divergent actions. In this case, the collective noun is treated as a plural to reflect the plurality of the members' actions:

The jury were unable to come to any consensus.

If the jury had reached a unanimous decision, we would have said:

The jury was unanimous in its verdict.

Pronoun
 

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.

[B]There are six types of pronouns:[/B]

Personal, Reflexive,
Indefinite, Relative,
Possessive, Demonstrative,
Personal pronouns.

Since nouns refer to specific persons, places, or things, personal pronouns also refer to specific persons, places, or things. Pronouns have characteristics called number, person, and case.

Number refers to whether a pronoun is singular (him) or plural (them). Thus John Kennedy becomes he or him, while the president's friends would be they or them.

Person is a little more abstract. The first person is the person speaking-I. The sentence "I expect to graduate in January," is in the first person. The second person is the one being spoken to–you: "You may be able to graduate sooner!" The third person is being spoken of-he, she, it, they, them: "She, on the other hand, may have to wait until June to graduate." A pronoun must match (agree with) its antecedent in person as well as number. So graduating students must be referred to as they or them, not as us; a valedictorian must be referred to as he or she, him or her, not as we or you.

Case refers to what job a pronoun can legally perform in a sentence. Some pronouns can be subjects and others cannot. For example, we are allowed to say "I expect to graduate soon," but we are not allowed to say "Me expect to graduate soon." Pronouns that may be subjects are in the subjective case; they are subject pronouns. Some pronouns cannot be subjects; they are, instead, used as direct objects, indirect objects, or objects of prepositions. They are in objective case; they are object pronouns: "His uncle hired him after graduation." "Uncle Joe gave her a job, too." "Without them, he would have been shorthanded."

[B]First person[/B]

Subjective : I, we
Objective : me, us

[B]Second person[/B]

Subjective: you
Objective: you

[B]Third person[/B]

Subjective: he, she, it, they
Objective: him, her, it, them

Subject pronouns also are used after linking verbs, where they refer back to the subject: "The valedictorian was

she."

[B]Indefinite pronouns[/B]
While personal pronouns refer to specific persons, places, or things, indefinite pronouns refer to general persons, places, or things. Indefinite pronouns all are third-person pronouns and can be subjects or objects in sentences.

Many indefinite pronouns seem to refer to groups–everybody seems like a crowd, right?-and so are often mistakenly treated as plurals ("Everybody overfilled their backpack"). However, any indefinite pronoun that ends in -one, -body, -thing is singular: "Everybody overfilled his (or her) backpack." The following indefinite pronouns are usually singular; if one of these words is the antecedent in a sentence, the pronoun that refers to it must also be singular. Thus, we must write, "Does anyone know," rather than "Do anyone know"; "Each of them knows," rather than "Each of them know"; and "Someone left her cell phone," rather than, "Someone left their cell phone."

[I]Indefinite pronouns, singular[/I]
anyone, anybody, anything, either, each,
no one, nobody, nothing, another, one,
someone, somebody, something, any
everyone, everybody, everything.


On the other hand, some indefinite pronouns are plural:

[I]Indefinite pronouns, plural[/I]
both, few, many, several

Plural indefinite pronouns take plural verbs and plural pronouns: "Both were rewarded for their courage." "Many attend in spite of their other obligations."

A few indefinite pronouns can be either singular or plural, depending on the context:


[I]Indefinite pronouns, singular or plural[/I]
most, any, all, none, some, neither


Thus, we may write, "All is well," (singular) in reference to the general condition of things, or "All are attending," (plural) in reference to individuals. (For more, look up count and non-count nouns in an English grammar reference or online.)

(Some of the indefinite pronouns above can also be used as adjectives. In "Many left their trash on the riverbank," many is a pronoun replacing swimmers. In contrast, in "Many students went tubing on the river," many is an adjective modifying students. For more information, see the TIP sheet "Adjectives.")

[B]Possessive Pronouns[/B]
Possessive pronouns replace possessive nouns. Thus, Jamie's Corvette becomes her Corvette. Possessive pronouns never take apostrophes.



[B]Possessive pronouns[/B]
my : mine
our : ours
your : yours
his, her : his, hers
its
their : theirs
whose


[B]Reflexive pronouns[/B]
Reflexive pronouns add emphasis. They always follow a noun or personal pronoun and do not appear alone in a sentence: "Jamie herself changed the tire." "She herself changed the tire." The meaning is that she, and no one else, changed the tire, and the emphasis is on the independence of her action. Reflexive pronouns also show that someone did something to himself or herself: "She surprised herself with how well she did on the test."

[B]Reflexive pronouns[/B]
myself, ourselves
yourself, yourselves
himself, herself, itself, themselves

A reflexive pronoun cannot replace the subject of a sentence, such as in "Burcu and myself are taking that class together." Instead, use a personal pronoun: "Burcu and I are taking that class together" or "Burcu and I myself are taking that class together."

There is no theirself or theirselves. "They waxed the car themselves at home." There is no hisself: "Jesse taught himself French."

[B]Relative pronouns[/B]
A relative pronoun begins a clause that refers to a noun in a sentence. (A clause is a word group with its own subject and verb.) Who begins a clause that refers to people: "Krista is the math tutor who helped me the most." That may refer either to persons or things: "Laura is the math tutor that knows the most about calculus; calculus is the class that I am taking in the fall." Which begins a clause that refers to things: "Statistics, which is the interpretation of collected numerical data, has many practical applications."

[B]Relative pronouns[/B]
that, who, whoever, whose,
which, whom, whomever, what

Who is a subject pronoun; it can be the subject of a sentence: "Who was at the door?" Whom is an object pronoun. It cannot be the subject of a sentence, but it can be a direct or indirect object or the object of a preposition: "Don't ask for whom the bell tolls." Who and whom often appear in questions where the natural word order is inverted and where the words you see first are the pronouns who or whom, followed by part of the verb, then the subject, then the rest of the verb. So it isn't always easy to figure out if you should use who or whom. Is it "Who did you visit last summer?" or "Whom did you visit last summer?" To decide, follow these steps:


[LIST][*]Change the question to a statement: "You did visit who/whom last summer." This restores natural word order: subject, verb, direct object.[*]In place of who/whom, substitute the personal pronouns he and him: "You did visit he last summer"; "You did visit him last summer."[*]If he, a subject pronoun, is right, then the right choice for the original question is who–another subject pronoun. If him, an object pronoun, is correct, then the right choice for the original question is whom–another object pronoun.[*]Based on step three, above, correctly frame the question: "Whom did you visit last summer?"[/LIST]

Similarly, whoever is a subject pronoun, and whomever is an object pronoun. Use the same test for, "Whoever/whomever would want to run on such a humid day?" Change the question to a statement, substituting he and him: "He (not him) would want to run on such a humid day." The right word, therefore, would be whoever, the subject pronoun. On the other hand, you would say, "Hand out plenty of water to whomever you see." You would see and hand the water out to him, not to he; this sentence requires the object pronoun.

[B]Demonstrative pronouns[/B]
Demonstrative pronouns indicate specific persons, places, or things: "That is a great idea!" That is a pronoun referring to the abstract noun idea.

[B]Demonstrative pronouns[/B]
this, these,
that, those
(Like some indefinite pronouns, demonstrative pronouns can also be used as adjectives. In "That band started out playing local Chico clubs," that modifies the noun band.)

Noun and pronoun are explained really well. Appreciative effort. Thank you so much.

Verb
 

A verb expresses action or being.
jump... is... write... become

The verb in a sentence expresses action or being. There is a main verb and sometimes one or more helping verbs. ("She can sing." Sing is the main verb; can is the helping verb.) A verb must agree with its subject in number (both are singular or both are plural). Verbs also take different forms to express tense.

The young girl [I]brought[/I] me a very long letter from the teacher, and then she quickly [I]disappeared[/I]. Oh my!

If a noun was the first word you ever spoke (Mama or cookie), a verb probably followed just as soon as you learned that "Give cookie" got you better results than "Cookie." In a sentence, the verb expresses what the subject does (She hopes for the job) or what the subject is (She is confident).

Quite an interesting game going on here. All of the above posts belong to one person bearing multiple ids. Khud hi sawal, khud hi jawab, Khud hi shukriya, khud hi tareefain.