Lecture 5 Functional English Prof.
Raja Faseeh
What are Parts of Speech in English Grammar? Or In how many parts an English speech or writing
consists of. Name them.
Parts of speech are the basic categories of words according to their function in a sentence. It is a
category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. English has eight main
parts of speech, namely, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions &
Interjections. In grammar, the parts of speech, also called lexical categories, grammatical categories or
word classes is a linguistic category of words.
The parts of speech are commonly divided into two categories:
Open classes – Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and adverbs.
Closed classes – Pronouns, Prepositions, Conjunctions and Interjections.
Eight Parts of Speech in English Grammar
Part of Speech Basic Function Examples
names a person, Caribbean, ship,
Nouns
place, or thing Argentina, Mathew
takes the place of I, you, he, she,
Pronouns
a noun it, ours, them, who
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
identifies an action believe, seem,
Verbs
or state of being finish, eat, drink
modifies a verb,
lazily, often, only,
Adverbs adjective, or another
hopefully, softly
adverb
funny, unique,
Adjectives modifies a noun bright, beautiful,
healthy
shows a relationship
between a noun
close to, out of,
Prepositions (or pronoun) and
apart from
other words in a
sentence
joins words,
Conjunction phrases, and and, but, or
clauses
expresses emotion
Interjections and can usually whoops, ouch
stand alone
1. Nouns
A noun is a part of speech that identifies a person, place, thing, idea or events.
Name of the person Ahmed, Aslam, Michael
Name of the place Lahore, New York, Jhelum
Name of things Pen, book, Gold
Name of the state illness, childhood, justice
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
Nouns are the simplest among the 8 parts of speech. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject,
direct object, indirect object, subject complement,
object complement, appositive, or adjective as
depending on the necessity. Nouns are broadly
classified into five categories:
Examples:
Person – He is the person to see.
Person – Wajeeh started to run.
Person – Plato was an influential Greek
philosopher.
Animal – The dog barked at the cat.
Animal – Elephants never forget.
Place – Harvard and Yale are two famous universities.
Place – Look! There’s the Eiffel Tower.
Thing – The lamp sits on a table next to the sofa.
Thing – Money doesn’t grow on trees.
Idea – The theory of relativity is an important concept.
Idea – Love is a wonderful emotion.
2. Pronouns
Pronouns as part of speech are the words which are used in place of nouns like people, places, or things.
They are used to avoid sounding unnatural by
reusing the same noun in a sentence multiple times.
In the sentence, Faisal saw Murad, and he waved at
him, the pronouns he and him take the place
of Faisal and Murad respectively. The other
examples of pronouns are I, you, she, her, it,
everyone, somebody, hers, theirs, etc.
Examples:
We are going on vacation.
Don’t tell me that you can’t go with us.
Anybody who says it won’t be fun has no clue what they are talking about.
These are terribly steep stairs.
We ran into each other at the mall.
I’m not sure which is worse: rain or snow.
It is one of the nicest Italian restaurants in town.
Richard stared at himself in the mirror.
The laundry isn’t going to do itself.
Someone spilled orange juice all over the countertop!
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
3. Verbs
Verbs as part of speech are used to signify the actions, processes, conditions, or states of being of
people or things. It is basically a word that characteristically is the grammatical center of a predicate and
expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being, that in various languages is inflected for agreement with
the subject, for tense, for voice, for mood, or for aspect, and that typically has full descriptive meaning
and characterizing quality in it. The different types of verbs are mentioned below:
Examples:
I know the answer.
She recognized me from across the room.
Do you believe everything people tell you?
Let’s run to the corner and back.
I hear the train coming.
Call me when you’re finished with class
I am a student.
We are circus performers.
Please is quiet.
4. Adverbs
An adverb is a word that is used to change or qualify the meaning of an adjective, a verb, a clause,
another adverb, or any other type of word or phrase with the exception of determiners and adjectives
that directly modify nouns. Adverbs normally carry out these functions by answering questions such as:
When? She always arrives early.
How? He drives carefully.
Where? They go everywhere together.
In what way? She eats slowly.
To what extent? It is terribly hot.
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
Examples:
She was walking rapidly.
The kids love playing together in the
sandbox.
Please come inside now.
His jokes are always very funny.
You don’t really care, do you?
5. Adjectives
Adjectives are words that describe or modify a noun or a pronoun in the sentence. The adjectives are
easy to spot because they come immediately before the
nouns they modify. They are used to identify or quantify
individual people and unique things and are usually
positioned before the noun or pronoun that they
modify. Some sentences also contain multiple
adjectives.
Examples:
A beautiful flower. A sharp knife, big class.
Fahad is a good boy.
He is blind.
He has a sharp knife.
Anila is a beautiful girl.
They live in a big, beautiful house.
Since it’s a hot day, Lisa is wearing a sleeveless shirt.
The mountaintops are covered in sparkling snow
On her birthday, Brenda received an antique vase filled with beautiful aroma.
6. Prepositions
A preposition is a word placed before a noun or a pronoun to indicate some relation between the noun
or pronoun and some other word. The noun or pronoun that is connected by the preposition is known
as the object of the preposition. Some common prepositions are in, on, for, to, of, with, and about, etc
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
Examples:
I prefer to read in the library.
He climbed up the ladder to
get into the attic.
Please sign your name on the dotted
line after you read the contract.
Go down the stairs and through the
door.
He swam across the pool.
Take your brother with you.
7. Conjunctions
Conjunctions are used to link different clauses together, and
to join words, phrases and sentences. By using conjunctions,
we can make complex sentences that show a connection
between actions and ideas. Examples: and, but, so, although,
or, etc.
Examples:
I tried to hit the nail but hit my thumb instead.
I have two goldfish and a cat.
I’d like a bike for commuting to work.
You can have peach ice cream or a brownie sundae.
Neither the black dress nor the gray one looks right on
me.
My dad always worked hard so we could afford the
things we wanted.
I try very hard in school yet I am not receiving good grades.
8. Interjections
It is a word used to express emotions or some sudden outburst of feeling. Usually, used as an
exclamation (!) by itself or with a comma following it if used at the beginning of a sentence. Though
interjections do not relate grammatically to the other parts of the sentence or help the reader
understand the relationship between words and phrases in the sentence, they express a wide variety of
feelings, such as joy, sorrow, surprise, disgust, etc.
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Lecture 5 Functional English Prof. Raja Faseeh
Examples:
– Oh dear! – My goodness! – Wow! – Ouch!
– Yes,
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