Part of Speech: Grammar – JSS3 English Lesson Note (First Term)

A part of speech is a group of words that do the same job in a sentence.

Behavioural objectives

By the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

1. Name the eight parts of speech and state the job of each.
2. Identify the types of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs in sentences.
3. Arrange adjectives in the correct order before a noun.
4. Use stative and dynamic verbs correctly with progressive tenses.
5. State the part of speech of a given word from its use in a sentence.

How many parts of speech are there in English?

There are eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

Can one word belong to more than one part of speech?

• Rule: the part of speech depends on the job the word does in the sentence.
• Noun use: “I would like a drink.” Here “drink” is a noun.
• Verb use: “They drink too much.” Here “drink” is a verb.

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that names a person, a place or a thing.

• Examples: Sarah, lady, cat, Canada, room, school, football, reading.
• Sentence: People like to go to the beach.
• Sentence: Emma passed the test.
• Sentence: My parents are travelling to Japan next month.

What are the types of nouns?

There are six types of noun: abstract, concrete, common, proper, countable and uncountable.

Abstract nouns

• Meaning: names an idea, feeling or quality that you cannot touch.
• Examples: hope, love, peace, ability, success, knowledge.

Concrete nouns

• Meaning: names a physical thing you can see or touch.
• Examples: boy, table, floor, beach, king, rain, yam.

Common nouns

• Meaning: names a general person, place or thing.
• Examples: girl, city, country, company, planet, market.

Proper nouns

• Meaning: names one particular person, place or thing. It begins with a capital letter.
• Examples: Alice, Abuja, Nigeria, Google, Earth, Eiffel Tower.

Countable and uncountable nouns

• Countable noun: names something you can count, with a singular and a plural form. It can take a or an. Examples: window, teacher, tree, pencil, one pig, two pigs.
• Uncountable noun: names something you cannot count, and it has no plural. It cannot take a or an. Examples: furniture, advice, mail, news, equipment, luggage, information, water.

What is a pronoun?

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun.

• Example: “Lisa is a nice girl” becomes “She is a nice girl”. “She” is the pronoun.
• Examples: I, he, it, we, them, us, mine, itself.
• Sentence: He doesn’t want to go with them.
• Sentence: Would they help us?
• Sentence: His house is bigger than ours.

What are the types of pronouns?

There are nine types of pronoun: personal, demonstrative, interrogative, possessive, relative, reflexive, intensive, reciprocal and indefinite.

Personal pronouns

• Meaning: stand for people or things.
• Examples: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, us, them.

Demonstrative pronouns

• Meaning: point to things. They are this, that, these and those.
• This, these: things that are near in space or time.
• That, those: things that are farther away in space or time.
• Sentence: That was beautiful!
• Sentence: He wanted those.

Interrogative pronouns

• Meaning: used to ask questions. They are who, whom, which, what, whoever and whatever.
• Who, whom: ask about people.
• What, which: ask about things or a choice.
• Sentence: Whom did you speak to?
• Sentence: Which bag did you buy?

Possessive pronouns

• Meaning: show ownership and stand alone. They are mine, yours, his, hers, ours and theirs.
• Sentence: This place is theirs.
• Sentence: Is that cat yours?
• Sentence: My car is slow. Hers is much faster.
• Note: my, your, her, its, our and their come before a noun, as in “my wallet”. They are possessive adjectives.

Relative pronouns

• Meaning: link a describing part to a noun. They are who, whom, which, that and whoever.
• Sentence: The girl who called yesterday came to see you.
• Sentence: The teacher to whom you wrote has answered your questions.
• Sentence: She lives in Lagos, which is a busy city.
• Sentence: I liked the book that you gave me.

Reflexive pronouns

• Meaning: show that the action returns to the doer. They end in -self or -selves.
• List: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
• Sentence: He cut himself while shaving.
• Sentence: We must help ourselves.
• Sentence: She trusts herself.

Intensive pronouns

• Meaning: add emphasis to the subject. They have the same form as reflexive pronouns.
• Sentence: I myself baked the cake.
• Sentence: The queen herself recommended this restaurant.
• Sentence: The project itself wasn’t difficult.

Reciprocal pronouns

• Meaning: show that two or more people do the same thing to each other.
• The two: each other and one another.
• Example: Mike helps Lucy and Lucy helps Mike, so “Mike and Lucy help each other.”
• Sentence: We must stop fighting one another.

Indefinite pronouns

• Meaning: do not name a particular person or thing.
• Examples: anything, everybody, another, each, few, many, none, some.
• Sentence: Everybody wants to see you.
• Sentence: Can anyone call her?

What is an adjective?

An adjective is a word that describes a noun or a pronoun.

• Examples: big, pretty, expensive, green, round, loud, quick.
• Sentence: He has big blue eyes.
• Sentence: The old lady was talking in a quiet voice.

What are the kinds of adjective?

Adjectives can be grouped by what they tell us: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin and material.

What is a determiner?

A determiner is a word that comes before a noun to show which person or thing is meant.

• Examples: a, an, the, my, your, some, any, several, enough.
• Sentence: I have a red hat.
• Sentence: Some people decided to leave.
• Rule: do not put two together, such as an article and a possessive.
• Wrong: He has the my ticket.
• Correct: He has my ticket. He has the ticket.

Can a noun act as an adjective?

• Rule: a noun placed before another noun describes it.
• Examples: sports car, orange juice, television station, coffee shop, book cover.

What is the order of adjectives?

When a noun has several adjectives, they usually follow this order.

• Example: a nice little coffee shop (determiner, opinion, size, purpose).
• Example: my huge new swimming pool (determiner, size, age, purpose).
• Example: several Chinese plastic cups (determiner, origin, material).
• Example: the round yellow ball (determiner, shape, colour).
• Same type: separate adjectives of the same type with a comma or with and or but.
• Examples: a cheap, good meal; my nice and sweet cat; an expensive but important trip.

What are comparative and superlative adjectives?

• Comparative adjective: compares two things, as in better, worse, bigger, nicer, more dangerous.
• Superlative adjective: shows the highest degree among three or more, as in best, worst, smallest, most expensive.
• Sentence: She is a better student than her brothers.
• Sentence: This is the worst day of my life.

What is a verb?

A verb is a word or group of words that shows an action or a state.

• Examples: go, jump, sleep, eat, think, be, become, drive.
• Sentence: We had a nice lunch.
• Sentence: He drove for hours.

What are the types of verbs?

Verbs can be grouped as main and auxiliary, stative and dynamic, regular and irregular, and phrasal.

Auxiliary (helping) verbs

• Meaning: verbs used with a main verb to form tenses, questions and negatives.
• List: be, am, is, are, was, were, do, did, have, has, had.
• Modal auxiliaries: will, shall, can, could, may, might, must, would, should.
• Sentence: They are jogging. (are = auxiliary, jogging = main verb)
• Sentence: He didn’t know the answer.
• Sentence: Will she help?
• Verb phrase: an auxiliary plus a main verb, such as was playing, has eaten, will meet.

Stative and dynamic verbs

• Stative verb: expresses a state, not an action. Examples: be, seem, love, own, want, know, understand.
• Dynamic verb: expresses a real action. Examples: jump, swim, catch, write, hit, open, speak.

• Wrong: I am knowing what to do. Correct: I know what to do.
• Wrong: They are seeming nice. Correct: They seem nice.
• Same verb, two meanings: “have” meaning own is stative, so say “I have a laptop”.
• Action meaning: “have” meaning eat is an action, so “I am having lunch with Kate” is correct.

Regular and irregular verbs

• Regular verb: forms its past by adding -ed or -d. Examples: check, checked; open, opened; bake, baked.
• Irregular verb: does not follow this rule. Examples: drink, drank; sleep, slept; bring, brought.

Phrasal verbs

• Meaning: a verb joined to an adverb or preposition, giving a new meaning.
• Run into: to meet someone by accident. “I ran into Joe yesterday.”
• Make up: to invent a story or excuse. “He made the whole thing up.”
• Put up with: to tolerate. “I cannot put up with his behaviour.”

What is an adverb?

An adverb is a word that gives more information about a verb, an adjective, another adverb or a whole sentence.

• Describes a verb: She runs quickly.
• Describes an adjective: She is so beautiful.
• Describes an adverb: She smokes very rarely.
• Describes a sentence: Naturally, you don’t have to come.

How are adverbs formed?

1. Add -ly to many adjectives: quick, quickly; brave, bravely; sudden, suddenly.
2. If the adjective ends in y, change y to i, then add -ly: happy, happily; heavy, heavily.
3. If the adjective ends in e, some drop the e: true, truly.

• Exceptions: many adverbs do not end in -ly, such as fast, very, hard, home, just, too, well, never.

What are the types of adverbs?

There are nine types of adverb: degree, manner, place, time, frequency, duration, probability, comparative and superlative.

• Degree: You are totally right.
• Manner: He handled the situation well.
• Place: We found him outside.
• Time: I will do it later.
• Frequency: We often meet and chat.
• Duration: We spoke briefly.
• Probability: It will probably not work.
• Comparative: She sings better than I do.
• Superlative: He shouted the loudest, so he won.

What is a preposition?

A preposition is a word placed before a noun or pronoun to link it to another word, usually showing place, direction or time.

• Examples: on, in, at, by, under, above, beside, to, from, for.
• Sentence: I sat on the floor.
• Sentence: We will meet at four o’clock.
• Sentence: This letter is for you.

What is a conjunction?

A conjunction is a word that joins words, phrases or parts of a sentence.

• Examples: and, but, or, because, so.
• Sentence: She is smart and beautiful.
• Sentence: Would you like a cat or a dog?
• Sentence: We were hungry, so we ordered pizza.

What is an interjection?

An interjection is a short sound, word or phrase that shows the speaker’s feeling.

• Examples: Oh! Ow! Hey! Wow! Ah! Um.
• Sentence: Wow, that’s amazing!
• Sentence: Oh dear! What happened?
• Sentence: Hello! How are you doing?

Where do the names of the parts of speech come from?

Several names come from Latin words.

• Noun: from nomen, meaning “name”.
• Verb: from verbum, meaning “word”.
• Preposition: from praeponere, meaning “put before”.
• Conjunction: from conjungere, meaning “join together”.
• Interjection: from interjicere, meaning “throw between”.

Evaluation

1. Name the eight parts of speech.
2. Define a pronoun and give two types with one example each.
3. Arrange these adjectives correctly before “table”: wooden, a, big, old.
4. Explain why “I am knowing the answer” is wrong, and correct it.
5. List the types of adverb and the question each answers.

Assignment

State the part of speech of each word in bold.

1. I like ice cream.
2. The cat keeps fighting with the dog.
3. Hey, this is mine!
4. He bought a new hat and a new shirt.
5. She handled it very smoothly.
6. This is the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen.
7. Obviously, you will not be alone.
8. Reading is important.
9. This is for you.
10. He probably hates himself now.
11. He is good-looking, but is he smart?
12. I am ready.